They stoked the gaping furnace with the poor wartime anthracite to build up the steam pressure and I was soon enveloped in that delicious childhood c… - Tony Ryan

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They stoked the gaping furnace with the poor wartime anthracite to build up the steam pressure and I was soon enveloped in that delicious childhood cocoon of excitement and terror, the red roaring furnace and the clattering steel and hissing steam and belching smoke coming to confirm my conditioned image of hell. But my father was there with his easy balance and [authority] and hell only could threaten. On the short journey to Goold’s Cross the men put the driver’s cap on my head and pointed out landmarks and the farms of friends and talked about horses and hurlers. They even fried the traditional engine-driver’s breakfast on the long steel shovel, but I was not going to be distracted. I was a train driver. I was going to be one for ever. My grandfather was one. My uncle was a Station Master at Bruree. My family was on the railway. Trains were in my blood. Nothing would change.