The fascination which engines and their human satellites exercise over
some minds is very great; and while speaking on the subject, I am
reminded of a young man who haunted for years one of our chief termini:
he was the son of a leading west end confectioner, so that his early
training had in no way disposed him to an engineering life; but he was
the most remarkable accumulation of statistics in connection therewith I
ever knew. The line employed several hundreds of engines, and he not
only knew the names of all of them, but when they were made, and who had
made them; when each one had last been supplied with a new set of tubes
at the factory—this last, of course only referred to the engines employed
on the main line, which he had an opportunity of seeing, and would miss
when they were laid up for repair—and how this had had the pressure on
its safety-valve increased, and this had been diminished. He had such a
retentive memory for these and kindred facts, that I have seen the
foreman of the works appeal to him for information, which was never
lacking. His penchant was so well known that he had special permission
for access to the works.
—_Chambers’s Journal_.