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A train guard who helped to rescue 100 passengers during the storms that lashed South Devon in autumn 2004 has finally hung up his whistle.

Plymouth-based train manager Graham Hughes endured winds of up to 85mph and waves crashing up to 50 feet high along the South Devon coast in a frightening rescue mission on October 27, 2004.

His First Great Western train had been held up for hours between Plymouth and Dawlish, when word came through that one of the new Virgin Voyager trains had broken down on the flooded line between Dawlish and Teignmouth.

More than 100 passengers were stuck because the water was dangerously deep.

Mr Hughes asked his passengers to get off, and took on a fire brigade rescue team.

The train inched its way along the flooded line until it drew level with the stranded Virgin train, where the stuck passengers had to crawl on to Mr Hughes's train along the fire brigade's ladders.

Mr Hughes, who plans to carry on seeing the country by train and motorbike during his retirement, was given a special commendation by Virgin for his efforts that night.

The 2004 storms were not the first drama in nearly 50 years on the railways, which started in 1963 when steam was still king.

At the height of the IRA terror campaign Mr Hughes found himself at the centre of a bomb scare.

Somewhere between Bridgwater and Taunton, working on the Friday night train regularly used by sailors from Devonport, a passenger reported a suspicious transistor radio in the toilets.

"It was wedged up halfway round the U-bend," Mr Hughes said. "I stopped the train, moved all the passengers along the train and unhitched the coach," he said. "They called the bomb disposal squad, and apparently they blew up the toilet ^ but they never told me whether it was a bomb or not. At the time you don't think about it, but afterwards it played on my mind."

Mr Hughes was one of three Plymouth railwaymen presented with retirement gifts by Bob Crow, the fiery leader of the railway union the RMT, during a recent visit to the city.

His colleague Ed Fontaine has also retired, after a more modest 19 years as a guard, or train manager, for First Great Western.

Bill Moore, a signaller in Cornwall and Plymouth since 1966, joined the railways in 1962. He said he had no plans to take a long train journey, and would instead be concentrating on his family and his garden.

"There were still steam engines when I started in Brighton in 1962."

Asked why he went into the railways, he said: "I was just interested in trains and signalling."

The craft of signalling has seen big changes in nearly 50 years. When Mr Moore started it was still 'semaphore' ^ the mechanical arms that were used to communicate with drivers ^ in contrast to today's computerised system of lights. Trains, too, have lost some of the romance, according to Mr Hughes. "The romance was in the sounds and the smells," he said.

Even more primitive than semaphore ^ though probably the most failsafe of all ^ was the task he had as a young platform boy on a single-track line. His job was to pass a token to a driver which allowed him to continue on his journey. The token would be handed over at the next station to a train coming the other way.

From the Herald (http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Hero-storm-retires-railways/article-2271768-detail/article.html):

  Unlike successful Fred Goodwin, bet he was glad he never joined the railway.