{"id":3931,"date":"2024-01-20T02:37:38","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T16:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=3931"},"modified":"2024-01-20T02:37:38","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T16:37:38","slug":"bluebell-railway-appoints-its-youngest-ever-steam-locomotive-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=3931","title":{"rendered":"Bluebell Railway appoints its youngest ever steam locomotive driver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Ben became the heritage line\u2019s youngest ever driver on his 21st birthday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Credit: <em>The Bluebell Railway<\/em><\/p>\n<p>After volunteering with the railway since the age of nine, Ben Gray was given his drivers card on his 21st birthday at the end of December.<\/p>\n<p>Ben is the son of the Bluebell Railway\u2019s Locomotive Engineering Director, Tim Gray, and the love of locomotives is clearly in his blood.<\/p>\n<p>Having been a member of \u2018The 9F Club\u2019 from a young age, Ben went on to become a cleaner for the railway at 16. He then became a fireman, before being recommended for the Bluebell Railway\u2019s driver training programme in early 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Ben took an exam on shunting duties and smaller locomotives handling in October, carried out on SECR No. 65 (O1). Then on December 30th, his twenty-first birthday, Ben took the next part of the exam, working on a larger locomotive- 6989 \u2018Wightwick Hall\u2019 \u2013 on a regular Bluebell Railway passenger working along the full length of the line.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the exam, he was officially passed out by Bluebell Railway Inspector Chris Suitters at Sheffield Park, becoming the youngest driver in the railway\u2019s 64 year history. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe railway is extremely lucky to have a range of younger volunteers who like Ben, wish to keep steam alive,\u201d said a spokesperson for the Bluebell Railway.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ben became the heritage line\u2019s youngest ever driver on his 21st birthday. Credit: The Bluebell Railway After volunteering with the railway since the age of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[321,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heritage-trains","category-rail-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}