Airports, schmairports. Now when I was little lad, my great-grandfather (retired locomotive driver) and his son, my grandfather (locomotive works fitter) took me round the Horwich locomotive works - this would be about 1950 or so - to see the steam trains being made. A day I'll never forget - huge wheels being lowered, noise, steam, hammering.

The highlight was standing on the footplate of a shunting loco in the works yard, while my great-grandfather drove the engine slowly towards the buffers. When nearly there, my grandfather put a walnut between the track buffers and the train buffers - and my g-gfather cracked the shell without damaging the nut.

I never saw it before - and I'll never see it again...