IT was full steam ahead for Burnley engine driver Arnold Hodgson to mark the end of an era in August 1968.

For he took the controls of a last run, a ‘spotters special’, on the day steam locomotives were finally ‘derailed’ in favour of modern diesels.

Arnold, 44, of Caernarvon Avenue, climbed onto the footplate of 8773, at the Rosegrove depot amid cheers and placards, bearing the words ‘farewell to steam’.

Hundreds of people lined the railway embankments to watch the last steam engine leave the station for a sentimental journey, organised by the Locomotive Society of Great Britain.

The engine, one of the original 8F freight locos designed by Sir William Stanier, left for Blackburn, to couple up with a nine carriage train, packed with enthusiasts, en route to Carnforth from St Pancras.

The engine then returned to Rosegrove to await removal by the Middlewich Preservation Society, which had bought it for £3,000.

Rosegrove, opened in 1848, lost its status as an engine depot, when the steam era closed and became a holdings siding for diesels.

But for men such as Arnold who had been brought up with steam, the job had lost much of its sparkle.

“Diesels just don’t create the same interest for the driver,” he complained.

“The job has lost its challenge, because now everything depends on the push of a button.

“But with steam you had to work for the power and fight for it.”

He was accompanied on his last run by fireman John Walker, 22, of Prince Street, Burnley, who had been made an assistant driver on the diesels.