Dad was a man of steam. He was Chief Engineer in the Australian Navy when steam boilers and pistons were standard. Turbines took over, but fixing and maintaining boilers, transmissions, cylinders, pistons, shafts, and high-pressure lines were a part of his daily duties.
I never saw what he did on ships. But I saw some of what he did afterwards.
After becoming a civilian, he took me to his civilian workplace. I got to witness what he did with these massive boilers and the last days of steam-driven factories. He’d don his coveralls, grab an oil can and a rag, and then start making rounds with the massive, smelly machinery.
He was a young father, and I was five years old. One of the first toys I remember him giving me was a shiny Mamod model steam engine. Most modern children wouldn’t know what to do with one. It’d be seen as a do-nothing device. There’s no Internet or touchpad. It’s a flywheel and a boiler — a round thing with a tubular bit. A young friend asked, “What’s the point?”
Steam-driven engines are a foreign, forgotten technology.
But I’ve never forgotten the smell of hot copper and spent fuel. It has remained with me all these years. Those passionate memories never inspired me to become a train-worshipper. I’ve never owned a toy train, had a passion for driving a real one, or even been interested in taking a long journey on one. I couldn’t tell you which manufacturer built what engine in which decade. My interest is purely memorial. I’m romantic towards old engines because of my times with my dad when he was alive.
It’s the smell that gets me.
The odour of an old steam engine is enough to take me back. Machined steel, hot lubricants and burning coal. Those scents have strong connections to my childhood. They bring me comfort. I like how they make me feel.
They told me the train was a ‘W’ class engine and listed its specifications, speed, weight, and working history. I nodded but retained little of the details. I was there to resurrect memory. Specifications are for those who are interested in trains and engines.
Echuca did the same thing for me. I was closer to my dad when I stepped aboard the vintage Paddlesteamer Arbuthnot. Dad had nothing to do with Paddlesteamers, but the old boiler engine inside it brought back those sweet memories.
When I made the 2014 journey from Brisbane to Perth, I came across a small town with an old diesel-fuelled engine driving a decommissioned water pump. It was in Bourke and I must’ve turned up at the right time. Once a day, engine-loving men wearing coveralls wake the enormous beast for pleasure and the passing tourists. Its flywheel was well over ten feet high!
The men greased the slumbering giant’s vital organs, poured some volatile liquid down its throat, and then heaved on its mighty wheel to get it going. I never thought it would start moving that slowly, but it did. It increased its speed once it got out of bed — giving off that familiar old-machinery odour as it warmed. The memories began to pour in once again.
Okay, that old pumping engine wasn’t steam-powered, but any old machinery will do the trick. When it’s operational temperature is reached, its odour is the same and mine to enjoy. Machinery, coveralls, hot, oily steel, dirty exhaust fumes and the thunderous ‘choof’ of a piston releasing its pressurised gas into the atmosphere are all I need to smile. Like I said, I’m not into the specifications of those old engines. I’m in it for the boyhood memories. Once every few years, I’ll find an old engine somewhere in this country, see it work, smell its life force, feel its power, and then travel back to my childhood to see my dear old father again. The rest is just history.
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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