Heritage railway driver retires after 50 years' service

John Giles stepped down as a locomotive driver after more than 50 years with SVR

A volunteer for a heritage railway who has retired from driving its locomotives says it has been a "brilliant" part of his life.

John Giles, from Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, started helping at Severn Valley Railway (SVR) in 1969 alongside his day job as an engineer.

The 75-year-old said his highlights included driving the famous Flying Scotsman locomotive.

"That's an honour. It's been brilliant really," he said.

"I've really enjoyed myself for the last 50 years, that's why I've kept going at it."

Driving the Flying Scotman locomotive was one of Mr Giles's highlights

SVR runs a line between Kidderminster in Worcestershire and Bridgnorth in Shropshire and attracts 250,000 passengers a year.

The line was bought in 1966, with Mr Giles signing up a year later when he was "in the right place at the right time" as the attraction needed firemen and drivers.

"As a child of the 50s and 60s, schoolboys always wanted to be a train driver," he told BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester.

"[But] in those days you tended to listen to what your parents told you and they were dead against me being a train driver."

Mr Giles said he always wanted to be a train driver but his parents would not let him

Within two years of joining the railway, Mr Giles was a fireman and in 1971 he became a qualified steam engine driver.

"Driving a steam engine is totally different to anything else really," he said.

"They are alive and they tell you what is wrong with them and tell you when you are not treating them properly."

Having driven "a thousand or two" times up and down the line, he said he would still be involved with SVR but not on the footplate.

Mr Giles was thanked by SVR for his "many, many years of service".