The Mighty 9F & Tom Wootton (Former Saltley Driver):

Tommy Wooton, The first driver I ever had out on the mainline, down to Bristol with a Class 47 the back up to Brum with a Class 45,he put me "in the chair" between Cheltenham and Barnt Green, 90mph with an express at 16 years old. What a gentleman. I think Tom was an ex Crewe man and was one of the few men to sign Carlisle both ways.

One day at Cardiff Central, the King heading the Red Dragon had to uncouple because the axle loading was too heavy for the last leg to Swansea. The King always ran light to Cardiff Canton shed. Whilst being turned for the return run, the loco was declared failed. The stand-by engine on that day was a 9F. Ninety MPH was achieved several times on that return run. Heads must have turned at Paddington when a lowly freight loco stopped just short of the buffers. The poor fireman that day must have worked almost as hard as Tommy Bray on the 3rd of July 1938 record run. Thanks for a great presentation, and thanks to Tom, once an engine, always an engine man.

This is great to see. His son, Denis, is my grandad. Heard some great stories over the years and it's nice to know people thought highly of my great grandad Tom

Remember my first firing shift on a 9f well. Northampton to Willesden 1956/7 Never ever seen one before, this shift usually had a 7f to haul us up the steep bank with 50 coal wagons behind us, quite a struggle. Anyway, this early am turn had a real good start. My driver was about 5 foot tall and round and he couldn't get on the footplate without me grabbing his bag and hauling him to the bottom step. Anyhow the steep bank didn't prove a problem for this great engine and we soon reached our destination in north London about 2 hours which was virtually half the time with the super D

What a fabulous video. It was great seeing Tom again and hearing his calming voice. One of the best drivers I ever worked with. The Don Bilston record also brought back the fact that I had quite a few records of his. As an old driver he really knew how to capture the feel of the footplate in his music.

the 15 tons of coal came from a Carlisle trip during the war when given an overloaded tender on a baby scot and still had to go on to Holbeck for coal due to the engine being worked on full gear.

That's one of the Best videos I've seen for some time Brian, absolutely stunning piece of work, featuring a wonderful man who typifies a real Railwayman that made the Railways such a great organisation to work for...Best wishes....Bob

Thoroughly enjoyed that. Thank you ! BUT! - WARNING TO ALL (!) If you have any content that you value on home-recorded DVDs , COPY THEM to another format for safe keeping : use something like "DVD decrypter" to copy the ".vob" files on the dvd and store them on memory stick and the cloud : DVD+/-R or RW can be very unreliable over time.

Thats my grandad xxx

Put a massive smile on my face! Thanks, Brian.

The incidental music is to die for...:dothefive: hope so..

Awesome video nice to hear Toms story can t get enough of the 9 F s

A great mix of sound and vision there Brian, and so evocative of times past. I'll bet great memories came flooding back as you complied that. Cheers, Rob

Wonderful.

I was a train man 'D' at saltley 360 of drivers and 355 where a pleasure to work with but the other 5!! Went to garston depot to get my drivers job in 1990...one of the driving instructors once passed a pearl of wisdom to me...sorry for swearing...any arsehole can make the train move but stopping in the right place in the right manner is the hard bit! True words

Thanks for the upload. John Peel narrating from a series from the nineties?

priceless

A bit late to the party, but bloody lovely content and comments too! Cheers

John Peel Commentary

My Grandad was a Saltley Seagull and was pals with Tom. His name was Bill Walton, a top link driver