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Squeezing inside the boiler of a steam locomotive to do repairs was just one of the hazardous tasks undertaken by Loco Works apprentice Peter Taylor, who pays a glowing tribuite here to the skilled men he worked with in the 50s.

It has been my profound privilege to have known the men shown in the photograph featured in Bygones last month.

They were, of course, not Trent bus drivers and mechanics but a small segment of the elite of skilled railway craftsmen employed by the unmatched Derby Locomotive Works.

They represented generations of traditional and specialised steam railway skills at their peak.

I am a fourth-generation steam railwayman myself and it was an honour to join this group of tradesmen as an apprentice in 1953.

What they taught me I have, with reverence, practised and handed on to others. No better trade training was had by anyone, anywhere.

In addition to the many external and internal features of a steam locomotive boiler requiring their skills, some of these men worked to exacting limits on the vertical boiler face, installing a multiplicity of gauges, valves and other associated apparatus.

Each device was painstakingly bedded and mounted by hand. There was no room for error. The hand-filed and polished contact of the face-to-face joints had to be absolutely perfect first time.

Failure at the boiler test pit would be an embarrassing smear upon the entire department. No 23 Shop Boiler Mounting was a tribute to the skills of generations of railwaymen, a shrine to perfection.

The first fitter to whom I was assigned was Charlie Carless, an ageing man of slight physical stature but a giant among his peers.

My second fitter was Jack Crew, who was unmatched in his particular skills.

Charlie Carless was a fair but strict disciplinarian and maintained the principles he had been taught as a boy apprentice in the days when foremen wore smart suits, stiff collars and bowler hats.

Jack was a little less rigid but had his own corrective methods. Working with Jack, specialising on the boiler internal steam pipes and regulators, my role was to support, from inside the boiler, his tasks on the outside.

My only access into the boiler was through the regulator dome, situated about halfway along the upper surface. Without the steam regulator installed, getting into the boiler was no problem.

All that was required were a couple of screw jacks, referred to as "sprags". I would go head-first into the boiler dome and jack open a space wide enough to enter the boiler. Sometimes I would forget to take an essential tool into the boiler with me. Asking Jack to pass this item was only tolerated for a short while.

There was also the odd occasion when it was necessary to enter the boiler with the steam regulator installed. Such a hazardous undertaking was very time-consuming and dreaded by most because there was the inevitable discomfort of getting past the regulator and a risk of injury.

You went feet-first into the boiler dome, making sure not to dislodge the jack. Being trapped could be a significant problem.

A back-up second jack was always good insurance. If your feet slipped away from beneath you, you fell and waited for the cast iron steam regulator to make contact with the underside of your chin.

The natural reaction to such a bump would cause the head to jolt backwards striking the back of the head on the inner rim of the boiler dome. Many have the scars to bear witness.

It was during one such event, when finally inside the boiler, that I discovered the absence of my essential hammer. Jack decided to teach me a valuable lesson by making me repeat the ordeal. I did not forget it again.

The photograph, above, was taken around 1955. I am front, right, with my fellow apprentices, relaxing at lunchtime down the old Klondyke park. Steam locomotives would be waiting there for entry into the repair shops at the south-east end of No 8 Erecting Shop.

The old iron foundry can be seen in the background. Little did we realise then that the concrete blocks upon which we were sitting foretold the demise of the main-line passenger steam locomotive.

The 0-6-0 diesel shunting engines had been tolerated since about 1953, but these pre-cast blocks were to be the floor of the new workshop for the oil-powered main-line 1160hp Bo-Bo locomotives which were to follow in the name of progress.

Considering what followed, it was certainly not progress.

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County:  Derbyshire