Realising how many readers enjoy looking at pictures of railway engines — certainly in preference to those of another photographic subject occasionally to be seen on this page — I thought I would offer a study of the Victorian steam locomotive starring in the new production of The Railway Children at Waterloo Station.

She’s a beauty, isn’t she? The Great Northern Railway’s No.1 was built at Doncaster, to the design of Patrick Stirling, in 1870. She and the 52 sister members of her class went on to set new standards for speed.

Her single pair of 8ft 1in driving wheels, powered by outside cylinders, could propel her at up to 85mph on express passenger trains. The most famous exploits of the Stirling Singles came during the 1895 Race to the North, when rival railway companies competed for the lucrative Anglo-Scottish passenger business.

Studying her at close quarters in Waterloo last week, I marvelled at how tiny she seemed in comparison with the steam engines that graced the tracks in my youth. As one lucky enough to have occasionally been given a ride in the cab in my trainspotting days, I realised that here was a footplate — cramped, open to the elements — that I should not much have wanted to ride on, still less work on. Think of the discomfort, as one hurtled along on a rain-lashed winter’s night, of humping coal into the firebox, cursing one’s sopping clothes and red-raw ears.

No.1 remained in service until 1907, by which time she had run more than 1,400,000 miles. It is curious to consider that this was only 15 years before Nigel Gresley unveiled the GNR’s first Pacific, Great Northern. It was this design, of course, that led ultimately to the world-record-breaking A4 class Mallard, which is now to be seen at No.1’s usual home, the National Railway Museum in York.

But it was another kind of high-speed record breakers that were on my mind at Waterloo — the Eurostar trains that used these platforms until their transfer to St Pancras in autumn 2007.

It happens that I was lucky enough to travel on one of the very first trains — in the cab of it for part of the journey.

That is my ticket for the trip on the left. It might be noted that the date, October 20, 1997, is some three weeks before the service officially began. That was because I was on a special train run for the Press.

Just think how recently this was (though I see from the ticket you could still smoke on trains then, even if I didn’t). What a condemnation it is of the way British railways are run that a terminus which cost so much money would now, but for The Railway Children, be standing idle.

After January, it would seem, all these costly facilities will be mothballed again. It seems very strange to me that some Eurostar trains can’t still be run from there, catering for passengers who find St Pancras harder to reach. But I am only an ignorant layman.