THERE was a time when, like most small boys, Spectator wanted to be an engine driver until he followed the road to perdition in journalism.

A recent train journey reminded him how times have changed. Once highly visible, the idols of many a schoolboy are now cocooned from prying eyes behind tinted windows in such impersonal modern contraptions as the Virgin Voyager.

Spectator is old enough to remember drivers and/or firemen, generally of more mature years, looking back from their cabs as they awaited the whistle giving the right away after a stop at Bank Top station in Darlington.

An even greater thrill was to watch these men backing a hissing steam locomotive or a thundering Deltic diesel into position at the head of a rake of carriages ready for a northbound departure from Kings Cross.

But like policemen, drivers seem to get younger every day. The last time Spectator saw one was when the improbably youthful looking person in charge of a GNER electric locomotive, bearing the splendid name Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, poked his head out of the side window for air on a northbound stop at Darlington.

Alas, a brief platform chat with him about the techniques involved in handling such a machine did nothing to rekindle the old railway romance as Spectator and others like to remember it.

Caught out

DARLINGTON motorists have joked for some time that the council's speed check signs, which are moved around the town's roads, show 31mph as a matter of course.

The point was made very definitely at the weekend when a driver, approaching one such sign, slowed down to make a right turn just before he reached it. As his car came to a stop to allow oncoming traffic to clear, the sign facing him sprang into life with a red "31".

Money trail

IT'S a long story but we'll try to keep it short.

Our Yorkshire edition readers may recall the story about the woman from Brompton on Swale who rightly took exception to having to pay £1.21 postage for an election communication from the Conservative Party which should have been delivered free.

It was the Royal Mail's fault but Tory county councillor Carl Les, to whom the lady had complained initially via Coun Les' answerphone without leaving contact details, sent Spectator a postal order for £1.21 hoping we could get the money to her. The order was duly popped in the post but has been returned as the "addressee has gone away.".

If the lady concerned contacts Spectator with her full address, he will bring it round personally.