Goods Train

A new experience today as I guarded a goods train.  It was just for show - nothing in the wagons but still a lot of fun and very different from guarding a passenger train.  Trucks don't have air brakes or screw couplings so this was much closer to the true Victorian railway experience.  There's a peculiar skill in controlling the manual guard's van brake to prevent the whole train concertina-ing as it accelerates or slows down.  Get it wrong and you are in for a bumpy ride!

An amusing aside here 

Extra pic shows the view from the (dirty) van window as the train cuts through the long lineside grass on it's way home.