View from Platform 6: this 16.10 departure was a holidaymaker's train from an east-coast resort, which terminated at Manchester (Piccadilly) station. Providing haulage, no. 45073 would have been one of Trafford Park depot's more reliable engines, as it survived until the end of British Rail steam during summer 1968. The lone 'Peak' class diesel peeping from behind the signal box: today being a summer Saturday, possibly this was on stand-by duties meaning on a busy day, simply waiting in case needed to replace a failed locomotive. Members of this class were a familiar sight including on trains to London (St Pancras) station, which were exclusively Peak-hauled at the time. On the end of the platform, the Midland railway cast-iron notice on a leaning post informed that trespassing on the railway was forbidden, anyone caught doing so would be fined! The box immediately behind the notice contained sand. This was provided to assist locomotives which were having difficulty with wheel-slip, the sand helping to provide grip. Information from the photographer John Thickitt.

From the photographer. John Thickett also recalls a memory of the same train on the same line

‘A frost-gripped mid-1960's Winter afternoon; Platform 6 at Sheffield Midland station. I'm trying to keep warm, beside the engine which was waiting to leave on a local passenger train to Manchester Central station. My request to 'cab' the engine, a Black Five class number 45073, was agreed a privilege only sometimes granted!. A few minutes of warmth on the footplate, a rare opportunity to ask the driver questions about steam engines. One of these must have had a connection concerning the warmth in the cab because as I was leaving, he made a response about the sometimes uncomfortable life on the footplate that I've always remembered: You fry in Summer and freeze in Winter! Something I'd never thought about, although I had seen footplate crews in their winter-wear of thick jumpers and railway supplied 'donkey' jackets.’