‘ALEC IAN’ – A TRIBUTE
‘Jacobite’ driver Alexander John MacDonald – ‘Alec Ian’ to those who know him – retired last summer, ending a footplate career that spanned over six decades. His footplate colleague JOHN HUNT tells his story.
Celebrating a ‘Jacobite’ stalwart
Alexander John MacDonald retired in 2018 after nearly 62 years of unbroken service on the railway, latterly as a driver of the now legendary ‘Jacobite’ steam-hauled train between Fort William and Mallaig.
Alex (known by his colleagues as ‘Alec Ian’) from Morar started out as a cleaner, aged 16, on steam locomotives in Mallaig depot on March 3 1957. After six weeks he was asked to work a night shift, as the usual fire-raiser was on holiday. He had to light and keep the fires going in five engines with only the aid of a paraffin lamp, so they’d be ready for the early morning jobs.
At that time, Mallaig’s turntable was in an exposed location, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Alex helped to turn it on many occasions, but if the weather was stormy, with high winds, it sometimes just couldn’t be turned. (It was removed after the end of steam, but would be welcome today!)
Before too long, he had his first-ever firing turn with Driver Jock Haggerty to Fort William on a Gresley ‘K2’ 2-6-0: “I was told to bring sandwiches and a bottle of tea, which was to be kept hot against the firebox backplate,” Alex recalls.
Living in Morar, Alex had to walk (or, on occasions, run) four-and-a-half miles to Mallaig depot. Some shifts started at 5.30am, such as those to crew the shunting pilot, or early goods, which left Mallaig at 6.30am. At that time there were many fish specials going out each day, with 13 vehicles, in the days when Mallaig was the busiest herring exporting town in Europe.
HIGHLAND GAMES
Young Alex kept himself fit, and not just on the footplate or on his commute; he was also a keen footballer, playing for Morar Celtic which he later went on to manage. He was also was keenly involved in the local Highland Games, especially in shot-put, the hammer throw and athletics.
Sometimes, during the summer season, Alex and others were sent on loan to Fort William to work both shunting and passenger services, including the London sleeper (to King’s Cross in those days), which consisted of 11 coaches at that time and would be double-headed, changing over engine crews at Bridge of Orchy or Upper Tyndrum. Alex worked as a fireman on the Mallaig and West Highland lines until the end of steam in 1963, and recalls how well he was taught by the old Mallaig drivers.
After the end of steam, Alex recalls being a secondman to Driver Freddie Watson on a Class 27 diesel on the early morning passenger train from Mallaig in the early 1970s: “We struck a boulder on the climb up to Glenfinnan and were derailed. I had to walk to Glenfinnan, a distance of seven or eight miles, getting a lift part of the way from a P-Way squad, and the signalman at Glenfinnan had to notify Fort William, and others, that the line was blocked – no RETB [radio electronic token block] or mobile phones in those days!”
In 1972, after spending four weeks at Eastfield depot, Glasgow, mainly driving between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley, Alex was passed out as a diesel driver.
Alex transferred to Fort William depot in 1975, but later went back on the Mallaig line for a few years to be appointed as a driver on the retirement of Driver Freddie Watson. Two colleagues also moved to take up appointments elsewhere owing to retirements – Alistair MacEachen to the Oban line and Bobby Duncan (now a ‘Jacobite’ driver) to Inverness.
sCARY MOMeNTs
With the reintroduction of steam on the Mallaig line in May 1984, Alex worked on steam (initially under BR) and was passed out as a steam driver on ‘Black Five’ No. 5305 in December 1989, as well as continuing to work on diesel trains: sprinters, between Fort William and Mallaig and on the West Highland line, and also the Caledonian Sleeper, until 1994, when British Rail was privatised and ScotRail took over.
Alex says: “I was involved in winter snowplough duties over the years. Many a time, we’d go blindly through 20ft-high snowdrifts, in the pitch-dark middle of the night, with a long, heavy train over Rannoch Moor, not knowing what might happen. Health and Safety was certainly not like it is today!
“Over the years there have been various other scary moments, like Arnold MacBeth and I having to abandon a Fort William-Mallaig train at Beasdale due to six or seven feet of flooding, and often spotting walkers on the line in the distance and frantically sounding the horn and they’d just jump out of the way at the last minute.”
Many other things that happened are unprintable, Alex says.
We’d go through 20ft‑high snoWdrifts in the pitch dark
After retiring from ScotRail in 2005 after 48½ years’ service, Alex worked for West Coast Railways for another 13 years, mainly driving the ‘Jacobite’ but also the ‘Royal Scotsman’, various other charters, railhead cleaning trains between Perth and Inverness, snow clearing, and sometimes the ‘Hogwarts Express’ – or, more accurately, driving red ‘Hall’ No. 5972 ‘Hogwarts Castle’ for Harry Potter blockbuster film sequences!
Over the years Alex has worked on most of, if not all, the steam locomotives used on today’s ‘Jacobite’ and its predecessors, the ‘West Highlander’ and ‘Lochaber’. Asked whether he had a favourite steam engine he replies: “I would have to say the ‘K1’, which I was used to in the past and were specially built with smaller wheels, which suited the steep gradients and sharp curves of the Mallaig line.”
Half a dozen of the Peppercorn ‘K1s’ went new to the West Highland lines in 1949 to replace the ageing and rundown ‘K2s’. With their outside motion, rocking grates and hopper ashpans, together with padded cab seats, like Alex, drivers and firemen thought their Christmas and birthdays had all come at once!
Alex diplomatically adds that he also likes all the ‘Black Fives’ and the ‘B1’ that he has taken charge of over the 42-mile route.
ENCYCLOPAEDIC KNOWLEDGE
In a footplate career that spanned 62 years, Alex never had a day off sick. ScotRail bosses said at his retirement presentation that he boasted an ‘unblemished record’, with no accidents, and the same remarkable record over 13 years with West Coast Railways.
And there is no doubt that Alex’s knowledge, particularly of the Mallaig extension, was second to none. He knew every inch of the line, in all weathers, where sometimes you could seem to experience all four seasons in one day.
He readily passed his encyclopaedic knowledge on to those with whom he worked. As a fireman I learnt a great deal from Alex to help me make the job so much easier. In this respect, you always knew that when he started to roll a cigarette, you could momentarily relax!
Alex also had the knack of knowing where he could let the locomotive ‘run’ to recover lost time and often our arrival would be quoted as ‘Alec Ian’ time! He would suffer fools badly and would vent his ire if ‘his’ passenger train was delayed by others.
In the old footplate tradition, we would often ‘swap sides’ as this was the best way for aspiring drivers to learn. It wasn’t long before you realised that firing a route like the Fort William-Mallaig line is quite different from driving it.
As a driver you learnt all the subtle changes of gradient and the need to alter the regulator, cut-off or brake accordingly to ensure you maintained line speed and ran to time. Alex had his way of doing things and he made sure you knew!
Alexander John MacDonald will be a hard act to follow. We wish him all the best in his well-earned retirement, and offer our thanks for those indelible memories.
●● The author wishes to thank Alex’s wife, Barbara, for her invaluable help in the preparation of this article.