Antique Steam
ANTIQUE STEAM


 My business is no longer trading - Thank you to all my former customers

Welcome to Antique Steam. My name is Graham Jones.

I have been involved with steam locomotives most of my life, formerly as a steam engine driver at Aston Shed, working steam-hauled trains out of Birmingham New St Station over the LNWR lines. This was followed, with the demise of steam, by several years of "boredom" driving diesels and electrics. I then made the not-too-difficult decision to move a mile down the road from my previously very happy home at Aston Shed to Aston University. There, I spent five most enjoyable years studying for my BA and M.Sc., followed by a lengthy period dealing in antiques before finally returning full circle to my first love of steam locomotives, in miniature, even though I had technically retired.

Now, in 2024, I have finally decided to have my second and final retirement.

So, my business is now officially CLOSED.

I'd like to thank all my former customers, colleagues, and suppliers. They made my retirement 'job' an absolute pleasure.


Please read my true story
My Best Steam Locomotive Race





'Heading for the coast' on my 'Crack Express' / My 'Coronation' locomotive my wife bought for me at the Little Hay Club.



'Steamroller Steersman' / 'Memories re-kindled' - doing a bit of driving and firing with footplate friends on very steep-gradients of the NYMR.



'Soon be driving my Duchesses' / 'Some of my flying friends'.



Taken at my 80th, a gift from my daughters, a Driving Experience on the USA loco at the Churnet Valley Railway.


My Mid Air Adventures

I have now upgraded my microlight from the previous white Quik GTR - its large wing required the physical strength I lacked - so now to the latest red Quik R with the more powerful 1500cc engine and smaller wing. She rolls with luxurious ease descends faster with more response making landing a little more secure. Although at 65/70mph touch down speed, I really need to be fully alert to the vagaries of invisible local wind eddies. She does up to 120mph, and cruises at 100mph. Its just like having my own high performance sports car to drive around the sky, however, I am double blessed because I do have a super high performance car to drive on the ground - a Mercedes C63 estate which I wanted purely for the volcanic acceleration, 0 to 60mph, in just over 4 seconds.

It really is a great privilege to be able to wander about the sky in fine weather sometimes a mile high seeing crystal clear distant horizons mottled with cottonwool clouds. The preflight plan and a pilots satnav keep me from wondering into the flight paths of airliners, or too near a major airport, etc.

I still like following the railway tracks,the scene of my previous existence - glorious years driving the living and breathing steam locomotives heading express passenger trains. But now the high speed expresses travel like slow moving threads of silk glinting in the sunlight - in the same way that jetliners appear to be moving slowly and effortlessly through the air.

Once I have lifted off I find myself sighing with the pleasure of it all - just like a smoker taking his first smoke of the day. Ahhh. But now turned 80 years old I am fully aware I'm living on borrowed time so appreciate every opportunity I get of taking off for an hour or so. During the short daylight hours of winter the weather usually allows me to get in about three flights each month, just enough to keep my "landing skills" sufficiently honed - hopefully!!. The plane takes off and flies itself, the pilot lands it! Turbulence and crosswinds I now try to avoid as far as possible. I am not an adventurer flying all round Europe like some of my fellow club pilots.

These pictures are a selection I have taken from my microlight, starting with the Sutton Coldfield MES (Ballenygreen).
A flight in a Spitfire from Sywell Airfield - took controls for a brief period. Thursday 1:50pm 24 May 2018.
Crewe Station, with its northern junction / Stoke Station.
Uttoxeter Racecourse / Chester City Centre / Harecastle railway tunnel, disused since 1965.

Conway Railway Bridge over the estuary / Copper mines on the Great Orme / Llandudno North Shore and Pier.
Great Orme, West Shore Side of Llandudno.

The Severn Valley Railway at Bewdley, Kidderminster and Bridgnorth.
Alton Towers Resort and Alton Towers Theme Park.
Stafford County Show (Bingley Hall) / Foxfield Railway, near Stoke.
Photographs of the Churnet Valley Railway.
Shugsborough Hall near Stafford / Sandon Hall near Stafford / Weston Hall near Telford.
Scenes from North Wales coastline, Abergele, Colwyn Bay and Great Orme (Llandudno Bay).
Crewe Junction.
New junction under construction. Norton Bridge junction, trent valley bridge re-alignment, north of Stafford.
Bomb Craters, these fields are next to the M6 South Services. Over fifty bombs, fell just 400 yards short, of the largest bomb filling factory in the UK at Cold Meece (north of Stafford) where 18,000 people worked.
Lichfield Cathedral and Lichfield junction.
The National Memorial Arboretum (Alrewas) / Queensville Curve south of Stafford / Rugely Power Station surrounded by low level clouds.


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