A writer has said that the next best thing to presence of mind is absence of body; and no doubt many a driver would dearly have loved to be absent in body in preference to facing some of the sudden difficulties that have presented themselves.
Bagley’s Australian Locomotive Engine Drivers’
Guide
In the sealed world of the engine cabin Paddy Ryan is leaning back in his seat. The diesel is working without effort, the noise in the cabin is minimal and the ride is a smooth one. Paddy is alone. The fireman is still in the nose of the engine preparing the tea.
The converging headlights part the darkness in front of him. The long, straight stretch of track that leads into the town at which they will stop for five minutes is visible for miles. Paddy is leaning back in his seat, eyes on the track before him. He is perfectly still. A study in concentration. A driver utterly absorbed in the job at hand; eyeing the track, glancing at the gauges before him, watching for the signals up ahead. But Paddy sees none of this. Paddy Ryan is dead.
He has just had a massive heart attack. It was all over in a second. Possibly two, but not likely. No time to call out. No time for any last words, if only muttered to himself. One moment he was leaning forward slightly, anticipating a mug of tea and licking the last of the ham and mustard from a troublesome tooth at the back of his mouth. The next his body convulsed and the bulk of Paddy Ryan fell back against his seat. His right hand, the hand that dwarfed so many pot glasses of beer, is firmly wrapped about the throttle.
Paddy Ryan, Queen’s driver, Big Wheel driver, Loco’s best, has quietly, and alone, passed from his working life into railway history. At his funeral, a week from now, the secretary of the union will deliver his eulogy, will say of Paddy that his kind will not be seen again, that nobody smoothed the rails like Paddy, that Paddy was the master of the smooth ride, and the master is gone.
The Spirit is travelling at just over seventy miles an hour and has just passed through the first of its red lights. The fireman is crouched in the nose of the engine, at its tip. He has unscrewed the top from the tea jar and is whistling quietly to himself as he shakes the tea leaves into the boiled water of the pot. He continues whistling to himself as the leaves sink into the water. He waits for the tea to brew before giving it a gentle stir. If they were not driving a diesel, if it were steam, the fireman would be sitting beside Paddy for there would be no nose to disappear into. The fireman would see what has happened and take over the train. But he can neither see nor hear the cabin from here. This is the young man’s first job. He is nineteen. No wife. No girlfriend. The train has now passed its second red light.
Above him Paddy is still leaning back in the driver’s seat, his dead eyes focused on the job in front of him. Paddy is unmoved as he passes through the red light, the light that tells him to slow and allow time for the goods to slip into the loop. Paddy is also unmoved when a pair of headlights sweep round a long bend in the track two miles away as the goods becomes visible for the first time.
The Spirit is still travelling at just over seventy miles an hour and the mile that it takes for the two engines to meet will be covered in less than a minute. The fireman is still crouched in the nose of the Sir Thomas Mitchell as the headlights of the two engines converge. Paddy remains unmoved, as if still concentrating on dislodging from his tooth that last, stringy strand of mustard-flavoured ham.