G'day Konrad,

Was the "... first contact was the railway BBC songs, I heard on car-radio ..." the very first Ewan MacColl/Charles Parker BBC "Radio Ballad" The Ballad of John Axon ... first aired about 1959?

This was about an English good-train driver who died, staying with his out-of-control engine ... after a steam-brakeline failure.

(Once, in a fit of idiotic obsessive mania ... I transcribed the whole text of that one ... I doubt that it's still on my current computer - but I did e-mail a copy to Mudcatter "Wolfgang" ...

Regards,

Bob