When I was a little boy I lived on a farm at Longwarry beside the railway line. Every time a train went past we'd wave and the driver or the fireman would wave back. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we'd even get a toot on the whistle. It was a simple pleasure but a warm one.
It was usually the driver who waved. The fireman was busy shovelling coal as the engine laboured up the Longwarry Bank. The firemen were learning to be drivers and it was vital training because running a steam train is more of an art than a science. Paul O'Hara was a fireman and he has told me a great deal about his days on the footplate.
Paul was based at Warragul for a time, and at Korumburra, but he worked all over the state. I asked him his story because the locomotive fireman had a job that has passed into history.
His working day revolved around the fire for the locomotive's boiler. "A steam locomotive is just a giant kettle", he said. "I'd light up in the morning. You started with a wood fire, usually old sleepers cut up, and when you got it going well you'd start to add the coal."
The fire had to be built up very carefully. The bed of coals had to slope toward the front of the engine so the coal would work forward with the movement of the train. "A good fireman maintained a concave surface on the fire for the best distribution of heat." There was a real knack to turning the shovel and flicking the coal in just the right way.
When the driver was steaming hard and the fire was a good one the coals would glow with a white heat and the fireman could take only a brief glance while shovelling in the coal. Even so, he'd be momentarily blinded. It wasn't an easy job and Paul remembers working on a wheat train coming down from Oaklands with the cabin temperature steady on 145 degrees Fahrenheit.
The fireman was a diver in training. After perhaps eight to 12 years of experience he would become a driver, starting with shunting jobs and making up trains in the yards. Then he would be given the chance to drive a few goods trains. Only the best drivers were given the "big wheels". Paul explained that this term referred to the engines with big driving wheels, designed for high-speed running, usually with passenger trains. These could run at speeds of up to seventy miles an hour.
When a fireman gained a little seniority he would often become the "regular mate" for a particular driver. The drivers were the kings of the line and could insist on choosing who would work with them. On one occasion Paul O'Hara was asked to fill in as the fireman on what would have been his first passenger run, but the driver refused to take him and the train was delayed for thirty minutes while the driver's favourite fireman was found and brought to the cabin.
Paul was disappointed but he got his revenge. The train ran from Bendigo to Swan Hill at high speed but the driver overdid it and on the way back he ran out of coal, and steam. The train rolled to a halt about twenty miles out of Bendigo and an engine had to sent out to pull it in. Paul was the fireman on the rescue engine.
Another task was looking back to keep an eye on the train. On the Wonthaggi line Paul once saw a goods truck in the middle of the train jump the rails. It stayed coupled and a few bounces later it was back on the rails.
He remembers the Wonthaggi line as a very roughly-built track where 20 miles an hour felt very fast indeed. The drivers and the firemen on the South Gippsland trains had to know the lines well because there were so many hills. Steam had to be available for the steep hills so the firemen would build the fire up to be ready, but let it die down a little before the downhill runs when the engine would not be steaming so hard.
Operating out of Korumburra Paul was a fireman on J, K and R-class locomotives, and then a trainee engineman on T-class diesel-electric locomotives. He also worked on A2, D3 and N-class engines, some of them operating out of Warragul.
While based at Warragul he began to work on the now-defunct L-class electrics that were the workhorses of the Gippsland line.
On the steam locomotives, at the end of the day, the coals would be dumped into a tray built under the firebox, where they were doused with water. The cold ashes were then dumped. The fireman could do this while the train was on the move, too. The 'hostler' would then 'stable' the engine for when it was next needed. There were turntables at the stations which had engine sheds, so the locos could be turned around to face the right way. Diesel-electric engines can run either way around, and don't need turning, but there were safety limitations on running a steam loco tender first.
There was once a crew of three on the trains. The guard watched the train for 'hotboxes', bearings that became overheated and could cause a derailment. On passenger trains the driver would signal that he was ready but he could not leave, king of the road or not, until the guard signalled that it was safe to do so. The guard also carried detonators, lanterns and flags to place on the line as a warning if the train broke down and was stopped on the line.
The fireman was responsible, too, for keeping up the water in the boiler. This was carried in the tender. He had to wash down the cab, which got very dirty, and he had to oil-up the engine. "The locomotive always had to be handed over clean, with a good fire and 'three-quarters of a glass' of water in the boiler. Drivers were hard on firemen who didn't get it right."
I asked Paul why steam engines could start trains so smoothly. He explained that electric trains have multiple engines, On the steam locomotives the drivers engaged the gear and fed in steam smoothly. When the train was running he could shorten the piston stroke and thus save steam.
That was one reason for liking steam trains, but they have a majesty and a sense of power modern engines cannot show. Apart from a few special cases the steam locomotive has gone forever, and so have the hardworking firemen who once waved to little children on the line outside Longwarry.
(My great friend, and army mate, Paul O'Hara died in April, and part of our history died with him. Goodbye, my friend.)