Norman McKillop [Toram Beg]
revised 18 April 2021
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Driver McKillop of Haymarket was an extremely neat wee man, and it was difficult to conceive how such a slight figure could have driven the A3 Spearmint, let alone fired those voracious North British Atlantics, but he did. He was an adicted writer, and when his hearing failed he became editor of the British Railways Scottish Region magazine at its office near St Enoch Station in Glasgow, and where he couuld be seen in the refreshment room enjoying Burton draught beer at lunch time. He was both a convinced trades union man (he wrote the official history of ASLEF) and deeply aware of the need to improve the education of enginemen and had been deeply involved in mutual improvement classes.
Toram Beg, Wee Norman in Gaelic, was the pseudonym adopted by Norman McKillop, whilst he still worked as an engine driver, using it for contributions to Trains Illustrated and Trains Annual. He had always been drawn towards authorship and had begun like many others by writing on scraps of paper in the hope of writing something greater at a later date.

We met several times in the refreshment room at Glasgow St Enoch Station where he shared lunch with my father. Norman was attracted to the draught Bass served there, and the site was conveniently near to both their squalid offices in Dunlop Street. They were both very different from myself: small and dapper, and wearers of trilbies. It was difficult to imagine that so slight a person could have had the strength to drive a steam locomotive, let alone to have fired one in his younger days, yet his skill as an engine driver had been noted from an early date.
At the time of our meeting he was the Editor for the Scottish edition of the British Railways Magazine as deafness had ended his footplate career. His own favourite publication was The Lighted Flame — the official history of ASLEF. But having in deference to his memory mentioned this worthy, and well-written history, we will begin by examining his more typical output as exemplified in Enginemen Elite, Ace Enginemen and Western Rail Trail. In these Driver McKillop explored his own working methods and some of those of his colleagues. Most of what follows employs McKillop's own words, as like Treacey's photographs it is impossible to better the original.
For several years, Spearmint (60100) was Driver McKillop's regular engine and in Enginemen Elite he makes a forceful case for the Haymarket practice of allocating locomotives to specific drivers, rather than the common user practice adopted elsewhere, as in his own words: "The common user principle as applied to railway locomotives has never really produced efficiency or economy in spite of the specious arguments in its favour and possibly this can be more readily understood by a statement of an actual fact which was clearly demonstrated at Haymarket."
Spearmint had arrived into his hands in deplorable condition, but after insisting that certain key work was rectified it became his own engine where to quote him verbatim:

"The value of this job to the driver with his own engine was the reasonable time between his arrival and return working, and (so far as I was concerned) the fact that you could park your engine at the end of a loop and work away uninterruptedly. Right now I would like a word with the economists who see a chance to exercise their talent when they spot a spare hour where an engine shown on the diagrammed working as doing nothing for an hour or so between trains. It is during those supposed-to-be idle hours, that a real man gives attention to his engine, and possibly saves a good deal more cash than the "paper economy" shown by the hour taken from his daily diagram, and marked by the economist "unproductive" time.
Unproductive time! Ye gods! if they had seen what happened in the time we had at our disposal that week at Perth. While my mate was swabbing out the tool box and making it fit to house tools and oil cans (which did not leak), while he was doing this and knocking some of the filth off the cab, I was on the ground with the cab doors and a hammer straightening them to the shape they were supposed to be; and you've no idea what can be done in this respect using a rail as an anvil. These were first essentials.
"Once we got some semblance of sense into head lamps and gauge lamps, cleaned the gauge glass protectors so that the water looked like water and not a misty, ghostly movement "seen through a glass darkly," it was time for me to give attention to things not normally looked at on the common user engines.
"Again I'd like to say a word to the people who think that the common user principle is an economy on railway steam engines. I could almost guarantee to find on any common user engine which has been running for a few months a dozen oiling points at the very least which have never received a drop of lubrication.
"This was the case with Spearmint...".

Enginemen Elite is autobiographical which inevitably means that it begins with his experiences as a cleaner and firemen on the North British Railway before he became a driver. Like most enginemen he had a deep-rooted suspicion of the products of other lines, especially if they were right hand drive engines, which were particularly difficult to operate on the sinuous North British lines. The Great Northern D1s (the Ponies) were his particular bete noire, but North Eastern types, which also featured a right hand driving position, were not immune from criticism. "When you drove a "Z" or a "V" you had to adopt the crouching attitude of a jockey at the most tense moment of a classical race. This may look all right as an indication to the outside viewer that you're "streamlined for speed," but quite honestly its not at all necessary on a railway engine. I like to sit as comfortably relaxed as possible, and couldn't care less for making an impression. "The seat on the N.E. Atlantic was broad enough almost to serve as a bed; your feet rested comfortably on a built-up footstool, and in this respect they were the acme of comfort, that is, if you could sit properly and catch your signals through the front cab window. "But when you passed through the first tunnel and the front window became obscured by blobs of sooty muck there was nothing else for it but to crouch on your seat like a half-shut jack-knife, and stick your head out at the side in the approved style supposed to be that adopted by high-speed enginemen (at least I've seen quite a few pictures where this seems to be the common idea).
On the other hand, the North Eastern types were far smoother than their North British counterparts: "So there I would sit on the driving seat, shove up the "ram's-horn" throttle handle and glide away with a duplicate of one of the night expresses to London ("glide" is the only way to describe the beautiful motion of a "Z"). The only thing on my mind was the question "How's the darned thing going to behave on this one?" The "thing," of course, was the steam reverser."
On arrival at Gateshead he was amazed to find the enginemen's institute situated in a fine building as the mutual improvement classes, in which McKillop took a great interest, were housed in an old carriage body at Haymarket.
Finally, his contribution to trades union history must be recorded. Once again his writing skill is self-evident. In Chapter 8 of the Lighted Flame (Recognition) he wrote: "There was something blandly humorous in the assertion made by certain boards of directors that they regarded their employees as free and independent men—and yet they denied the right of the trade unions to speak for these men, because they are not feeling any unrest and are not underpaid. Within the Associated these ‘free and independent men' were organising at an increasing pace. They were becoming aware that it was useless to depend on separate approaches to individual companies. The duties and responsibilities of enginemen were similar, no matter where they were operating, and should be rewarded in a similar fashion, in rates of wages and conditions of service, on a national basis. Late in 1906 an Executive had been elected, which on 18th January 1907 formulated and sent out a circular putting forward the details of a National Programme that had been adopted at a conference on the 8th of the month. Later the author vividly describes the sufferings of enginemen forced to relocate during the 1930s with little or no assistance from the cash-strapped companies."The position of Cleaners and young Firemen on the railways was deplorable. As the junior members of the staff, they were first to become redundant, and thousands of them were forced to abandon their homes, not once but on many occasions, and to lead an almost nomadic existence, moving from depot to depot, to keep themselves in a job. Depots in some parts of Britain became almost international in aspect: the tongues of Scotsmen, Englishmen and Welshmen were heard mingling in parts of the country very far from their respective native heaths. It must not be surmised, either, that because they were junior in the grade they were juvenile in years. This was no trek of the unencumbered lad. Since in thousands of cases these unfortunate men had served the railways from 5 to 10 years, and were married men with families, one does not require a vivid imagination to picture the lives they were forced to lead. "If they were lucky-and very few were-they would get housing accommodation, but most of them had to leave their families and homes, and pay for lodgings where their gipsy existence took them. This sort of thing persisted for years, with the hope of promotion and better living receding ever farther. It must be noted that this keen trades union activity enriched his skills and did not unduly clash with his relationship with management.
From the enthusiast's standpoint Chapter 13 of The Lighted Flame (Locomotive Design) is perhaps the most interesting as McKillop applies some stick to Churchward's design on the grounds of accessibility: "it is recorded how one driver got jammed into the gearing and was extricated only with difficulty". On the other hand, the Gresley Pacifics "were accessible and comfortable to the men who were going to handle them" and "Gresley gave us a padded bucket seat with a back to it, and what was more, placed everything within reach". Going underneath the locomotive for oiling was minimized due to the derived motion. Perhaps the only criticism which could be levelled at his assessment is that he preferred the vacuum to the Westinghouse brake as the latter had a "tangle of copper pipes all over the engine". He did concede, however, that the air brake was far more effective at stopping trains.
The following extensive quoation comes from a contr ibution to the 1956 Trains Annual: The Gresley touch

Everybody knew, even when i was a senior spare driver, that I was a bit daft about the Gresley Pacific. That is possibly why I got the job of going to Doncaster to bring the Cock o' the North to Scotland, and run her (if a "Cock" can be called "her") for a week, on the sinuous ups-and-downs of the sixty miles between Edinburgh and Dundee. The senior spare link at my home depot of Haymarket did almost as much train running as the regular train drivers, with the difference that the senior spare men, like the products of Heinz, had a bigger variety. Before I934 I had handled on regular main line trains all that Gresley had so far produced, but there were whispers of something even better to follow. So when John Hutchinson, my "gaffer", invited me into his office and gave me the "gen" on "the biggest express passenger engine so far built in Britain," I almost fell on his bosom when he concluded "and you're going to Doncaster on Monday to bring her north."So it was that one lovely summer morning I got my first look at the first British Mikado type express engine, built to take unheard-of loads up gradients of I in 70 and even more at speed. As I first saw the "Cock," she looked impressive. Actually some four feet longer than a Pacific in her immaculate splendour, she looked a good deal more even than that. Slowly I walked the 74-odd feet of her length, checking over the detail differences to which I was unaccustomed. The flat round of the poppet valve gear-box, and the valve gearing which looked so flimsy, were my chief interest. I stood back and took her all in, as most of us do. There and then I ticked off what I did not like.
I did not then like, and never have liked, a pony truck for express work. The four coupled "drivers" were too close together for some of those curves I knew so well; I could almost hear the squeals as thatsemi-rigid mass did a spot of cavorting round the acute bends. I did not like the small 6 ft. 2 in. driving wheels, and the short connecting-rods. I have tried since to look at a picture of the "Cock" and disabuse my mind of this initial impression, but it still persists.
The whole of Doncaster shed turned out to see us off. On the road, when I blew the whistle it acted like the Pied Piper; people came running across fields, popped their heads out of windows, or stopped in the streets to look at this massive stranger wending her way north. And we were able to travel at speed, too. For you must know that during the Gresley regime every express engine which left Doncaster for a running shed needed no further "running in." Those were the days when Albert Gregson did the running-in on the Doncaster-London stretches—and Albert was very thorough.
It was arranged that I should work the engine on the 4.5 a.m. from Edinburgh to Aberdeen the following morning. I was to take the train to Dundee—60 miles non-stop—then work the engine to Dundee depot for examination before returning. "Now remember, Norman, none of your high speed tricks," said John Hutchinson to me, " No more than 70. That's the top limit for her."
But he needn't have worried. I had already made up my mind about that. One look at the Cock o' the North had told me that she was powerful all right, but that she wouldn't be in the Gresley Pacific class for " tip-toeing through the tulips." I said nothing to a soul, but inside me I knew that this was a Gresley "near- miss" and I was disappointed. The truth was that Gresley's engines had become to me something in the nature of an answer to every high-speed driver's prayers.
That first trip was sufficient to verify all my fears. We left Edinburgh complete with fourteen coaches and a technical "wallah" in the cab. I never allowed the "Cock" to touch anything higher than 65 on the short straight stretches. Round the curves I nursed her like a granny with her daughter's first-born, but about two-thirds of the way to Dundee I was smelling heat.
My technical companion said, " Better come off," but I thought otherwise. "It's nothing serious," I assured him, for there is a difference between one " heat smell" and another. So we timed the train to Dundee, there to find three of the coupling-rod bushes" cutting" to such an extent that there was a broad line of " gold " from the nave of the wheel to the rim, where the brass and oil had run from the bush. That first run was the start of a series of tests I made with the" Cock." After each run I reported on her-and I reported plenty. All the bushes had to be "eased" on big-ends and coupling-rods, but what could not be eased was her terrific appetite for coal.
Cock 0' the North became something of a star attraction to all, except the lads who had to fire her, so it was natural that she should head the parade at a big railway exhibition in Fife. It was perhaps also natural that a rather reluctant me should go with her. I answered all the usual questions from the usual interested lay- men, with all the discretion I could, until one gentleman, with a retinue of followers, put the fatal one I'd been dreading.
Gentleman: " Have you driven this engine on a train, driver ?"
Me: "Yes."
Gentleman : " They tell me she is excessively heavy on coal. Is that the case?" Me (blushing furiously) : " Are you a railway official?" (Smiles from the retinue). Gentleman : " Yes."
Me : "Then I'm sorry, it's not for me to tell you that. You'll possibly be able to get the figure from official sources." (More smiles from the retinue).
Gentleman : " Well, I'll see you again, my lad. I'm the new General Manager for the Scottish Area."
And so he did, and at his request I told him how the "Cock" could haul any two trains if you cared to tie them together; haul them up any known gradient on any railway in Britain, but no matter how a driver tried to economise, she swallowed a hundredweight of coal to the mile, where a Gresley Pacific was doing her job on anything from 28 to 35 pounds on the same road with a slightly smaller train.
Every time I drove the "Cock" I tried all I knew to cut down her coal consumption. With her poppet-valves there was no necessity to "coast with steam in her face." I ran her normally in 12 per cent. cut-off. I tried every trick in the pack—it was no use. The fireman almost needed a square-mouthed shovel to keep the fire going.
That gentleman knew the language all right. I tried to answer his questions with a simple "yes" or "no." As the driver it wasn't my place to suggest what was wrong, but his questions were real probers, and I've often pondered over how much bearing that conversation had on the decision to scrap the monobloc casting and poppet valves which formed the "fore-end" of the "Cock," in favour of orthodox piston valves, as was done subsequently. For that was where I diagnosed that the trouble came from.
There is a lot more that I could say about Gresley's Cock o' the North, but there are others I would speak of. Following the first visit to Doncaster, I spent two summers bringing to Scotland the so-called super-Pacifics— the" A3s" and the Gresley "A4s." It was during one of these visits that I saw a strange new engine straight from the works. I think I can claim to be the first Scottish engineman to clap eyes on the Green Arrow and to look at her was to like her. She had balance, the cylinders were in the right spot, the connecting-rods were the right length—but how can one describe just what makes up a satisfactory picture of a right engine to an engineman? And all this in spite of my antipathy to a pony truck!
I have since driven the breed many thousands of miles. In some respects they are better than the Gresley Pacifics—and that's saying a lot for this 2-6-2 Prairie class. Where excelsis is not in demand they are just the job. On the Aberdeen-Carlisle roads their quick acceleration and handiness on the twisting banks is marvellous, and with full Pacific loads. I ran them regularly in 15 per cent. cut-off and found nothing wanting. Somehow they lost character when one or two that were building in 1944 were converted from 2-6-2s to 4-6-2s.
I wonder why so little has been written about the Bantam Cock. There were only two of these built—the last of the Gresleys. These miniature "Prairies" were to all intents and purposes just "wee brothers" (or "sisters") of the "V2s" and carried the classification "V4" . They could go anywhere and do almost any- thing. That was perhaps why the "Bantam" was sent to Scotland to be tried out on the "rocky mountain" stretches which are the West Highland railway.
Before the "Bantam" departed into the wild country, I put her through her paces on our difficult Edinburgh and Glasgow express trains. These trains serve a highly critical passenger traffic. Business men commute between the two cities and at both ends of the trip there are important connections which must be caught. The drivers on these trains are in trouble if they run late, possibly more so than any comparable run in Britain. It is a difficult road on which to maintain time-a near fifty miles of what is called " level" track with a mile and a bit of incline at 1 in 41 dropping sheer into Queen Street station, Glasgow. The " level" is full of subtle gradients that only a driver can appreciate properly.
The little "Bantam" was given ten bogies to haul on the outward trip; a solidly loaded 325 tons, and with an inspector aboard we reached Glasgow on time. To me this was merely a period of getting acquainted. All the way I was putting questions to that little "Cock" and she was answering them to my huge delight. The chief criticism which every- one made was the smallness of the tender capacity. Not coal capacity—it was the water which was the big trouble.
So the "Bantam" and I concocted a plot. We'd show 'em, and I'll swear she was smiling broadly when we left on our return trip. The amount of water left in the tank at the finish of our outward run had been nothing to enthuse over, "But just wait I", we were both murmuring. "What do you think of her, Norman ?", I was asked at Glasgow. "She's good," I said, " but let's give her a real test. Hang on another bogie carriage for the return trip and see how much water we use now that we know each other." There was a little jaw-dropping and goggling of the eyes, but the extra vehicle was tied on, and off we went.
Once we reached the top of the 1 in 41 out of Glasgow, the "Bantam" settled down to show she was a dyed-in-the-wool Gresley. The throttle was kept wide open, and we played on that reverser as if it was tied to a gradient profile graph. During that trip there wasn't a single stretch of that subtle railway that wasn't matched with a reverser-quadrant number and the amazing amount of miles we covered with the pointer inside 15 per cent. was good to see.
There was more to it than this, however. My mate knew my passion for "hot steam" when I was testing engines—and it was always provided. On this occasion, neither I nor the " Bantam" were giving away any minutes uselessly running too hard and so having to stand waiting time in stations; and the guard, a good lad, took no more than the one minute he was 7 allowed at each stop. On the tightly timed sections (we had two stops) we were applying the brake at one end of the platform at 40, and coming to rest at the other end as if there was a sheet of velvet bringing us gently to a halt. And the number of miles we "coasted" on that" level" road can't be told because nobody would believe it.
See the idea? The "Bantam" was going to show 'em whether 3,500 gallons of water was enough to do anything she was asked to do. At Waverley station, when the measuring stick was dropped into the tank (they wouldn't believe the tank gauge) it was confirmed that there really was half-a-tank of water left. That little engine was standing there as mild as milk listening to a thunderstruck official repeating over and over again, "It's simply not true." I was the only one who saw her wink-maybe because I was the only one who winked at her I She's now in the role of " little old lady," toddling about somewhere in Scotland with a few carriages or wagons. When I hear her name mentioned I often wonder if she remembers a daft "Hielanman" who spoke her language, because he had a bee in his bonnet about the language she understood.

Western rail trail describes a journey made across Canada with his wife, Mary, mainly by the Canadian Pacific route. The first two Chapters give their response to Canada. Montreal was so much colder than the spring of Edinburgh which they had left, where the daffodils danced in their much-loved garden. At that time Canada was so much richer than Scotland: a state which has now been reversed (forty years later Kevin was amazed at the response of his Canadian nieces at a great family gathering on the Island of Arran to their surprise that Glasgow had been full of BMWs: what had they expected: Trabies?). Norman was awed by Candian wealth as expressed in terms of consumer durables and the high cost of living.

Some of the journey was made in the cab of the diesel-electric locomotives. Without question the high point, in more ways than one, is the traverse of the spiral tunnels between Field and Banff where the railroad storms its way across the continental divide in the heart of the Rockies. There is also a brief interlude with a minor diversion into the USA and a Kafkaesque account of his encounter with that empire's imigration service where it was suspicious of his need to visit railroad stations (how was Kevin so fortunate at his courteous reception at both Chicago and Niagara in the 1990s?). Where our routes intersected both were awed by Niagara, surely one of the greatest spectacles on the planet.

On page 105 there is a wonderful tribute to the influence of Andrew Carnegie and his lavish gift of libraries to his native Scotland. "For without the free libries he so lavishly provided for Scotsmen, I think that at least one of them wouldn't be attempting to write a book today." Dear Norman would have been aware that Frank's son was a librarian and was marrying a fellow librarian at about the time those words were written. He would also have seen "Let there be Light" on the entrance to Edinburgh Central Library many times. But our hero must have the last word: "attempting": such genuine modesty. Surely, McKillop is a worthy candidate for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, or must the Scots have to produce their own Scottish National biographical dictionary? Nelson considered McKillop to be a major writer: surely greater than Annie S. Swan.

Book details

The lighted flame. London: Thomas Nelson, 1950.
Enginemen elite. London: Ian Allan, 1958. vi, 154 p. incl. 16 plates. 40 illus. (incl. 8 ports.)
Ile Inspector (an NUR man?) cast doubts on whether young Norman actually fired a single on the climb to the top of Falahill: NBRSG Jounal, No. 43 page 6
Ace enginemen. London: Thomas Nelson, 1963.
Reviewed with a certain lack of symapthy in Railway World by JT
Western rail trail. London: Thomas Nelson, 1962.
McKillop, Norman. How I became an engine driver. Nelson. 1953.
Mildly autobiographical.
Duiscussion on ILocoE Paper 528 where McKillop responded to Tuplin's obsession with lower boiler pressures and narrow fireboxes

Locomotive Express
Found in a Cromer secondhand shop based on house clearances (no doubt from from one of those who used to write about footplate work in the Cromer hinterland) and not known by KPJ until then) Volume 4 was being produced in 1949 therefore it may have originated in about 1945). It was edited by McKillop assisted by John Todd.

Hardy, R.H.N. Stratford forever! Part 33. Steam Wld, 2007, (243) 30-3.
Wee Norman about to board a Type 31 with Dick Hardy in attendance

2021-04-19