A COUPLE of weeks ago, Echo Memories illustrated a piece on Timothy Hackworth with a painting of his Royal George engine standing outside his cottage in Shildon.

We did not realise it at the time, but the painting was by John Dolphin, who has countless other rail and maritime scenes adorning pubs around the Bishop Auckland area. There are 40 alone in the Bay Horse Hotel, at Woodhouse.

John, now 76, was born in Bishop Auckland, and was eight when his father introduced him to the joys of trains.

"In 1930, he took me to Durham City to see the 'hush-hush' loco," recalls John.

"It was standing alongside Durham prison on a single track with steps up each side of the footplate so you could walk through."

The "hush-hush" was a streamlined prototype which had for many years been kept under wraps, hence its name. It sparked John's life-long love affair with the railways.

In 1941, John found himself visiting a cousin in London and caught up in the Blitz.

He joined the railways as a cleaner in Cricklewood, but was soon called up into the Royal Navy.

As an able seaman and then a gunner, he started on North Atlantic convoys and then sailed in the Mediterranean, out to Burma and on into the Pacific around Formosa (now Taiwan).

On his return, he got a job as a welder in Shildon shops. After spells working in Scunthorpe, Aycliffe and West Yorkshire, he returned to British Rail in 1972 as a trackman at Darlington's Bank Top station. He was then given his own section of line, from Eastgate Cement Works down to Shildon North, to patrol, checking fences and fishplates. He retired in 1986, which gave him more time to devote to his painting.

"I've been doing it on and off since I was six," he says, "and I sold my first one for £5 in 1964."

Each painting takes a week to a fortnight, although his scrupulous historical research is on top of that. But now he is thinking of stopping.

"I've done the two from my imagination that I've always wanted to do - putting the engine on the line at Aycliffe Lane and the setting off on the first day," he says.

"Now I've done them, I am giving up."

l NOW a soundtrack to go with John Dolphin's picture:

"It was a fine September day, Tuesday twenty seven

"The fire was kindled, the steam was raised, smoke made its way to heaven.

"Six hundred people took a ride, though only half had paid from Brusselton Incline on to Shildon through to Aycliffe Lane..."

Another artistic endeavour connected with the Stockton and Darlington Railway is a compact disc called A Full Head of Steam. It features 15 songs about the line recorded by some of the North-East's top folk bands: Lindisfarne, Martin Stephenson, Vin Garbutt, The Wilson Family, Skerne (featuring John Burton, Tony Blair's agent) and finishing with the irrepressible Whisky Priests.

The above verse comes from a track called September 27th, 1825, which was written for the 175th anniversary by Darlington's Tom Hughes.

The compact disc is available for £10 from record shops, or by calling (01325) 467000.

Tom Hughes' song is going to be one of the centrepieces of next month's festival at North Road Railway Centre, when it will be sung by local children