Here is another slide from the Express trains series.

The introduction to the lecture runs as follows;

A story is told about an engine-driver who had no liking for the science of aeroplaning. “Talk about flying,” he said, “why, when I was out west on the Organae and Arrogant twenty years back, we just flew over the road, and sometimes our speed led to trouble. There was that time, for instance, when I tried to get level with Abe Smith. Abe always turned out to at Alicanda whenever I was running through and jeer at me. One day as I was approaching the station I saw him standing there as usual, I leaned over the side, intending to let Abe feel the weight of my fist in passing; but he saw it coming and dodged, and a big boss – Vice-President, I think – standing at Strangville, twelve miles further on, caught it instead.” The man who told this story was, of course, an American. English drivers never tell stories about their achievements, but in the matter of running at high speed many of them have little to learn from abroad.

Nothing like a bit of turn of the century banter and bravado stories, even if it is undermined by some old fashioned British anti-yank snobbery.