So this is what it's like to be famous. Crowds wave as we glide past, and wherever we go there are envious glances, video cameras and long lenses.

But, as trainee engine drivers, we're just the supporting cast. The real star of the show is the elegant Edwardian steam locomotive simmering quietly in platform two at Sheffield Park station. Weighing in at just over eighty tons, the dark green Wainwright 'C' Class is our engine for the week.

This month, Clive Groome celebrates the tenth anniversary of his Footplate Days & Ways training courses,based at the Bluebell Railway near Uckfield, East Sussex. Clive compares engine driving to sailing; an old-fashioned skill that now makes an enjoyable leisure activity. Although other steam railways offer footplate experience, the former BR driver insists that he's "the only man in England who earns his living teaching people to drive steam engines."

At £470 for five days, this isn't a cheap hobby - and it isn't a clean one, either. Besides driving and firing, Clive's trainees get a grounding in all the duties of professional steam enginemen, including raking out the firebox, oiling the bearings and polishing the brasswork.

So what makes half a dozen apparently normal people spend a week getting covered in soot and old engine oil? Nineteen year-old Katy Brown, a physiotherapy student from Surrey, caught the steam bug on holiday with her parents in Cornwall. "My Dad wangled me a footplate ride on the Bodmin and Wenford railway" she told me, "and from then on I was hooked. I'd been saving up for a skiing holiday, but came on this course instead."

On our first two mornings, Katy swaps her university lectures for the classroom at Sheffield Park. "Some drivers just work to a formula, but the best ones understand what they're doing" says Clive, as he uncovers the mysteries of boilers, valve gear and vacuum brakes, and explains the enginemen's duties.

There's a lot to take in, but the lectures are broken up with practical sessions in the yard, where we look at signalling and get our hands dirty learning the safe way to couple an engine up to its train. "The theory definitely helps" agrees Steve Whymark, who's come back to learn more after a one-day course last December. "I know what all the different components do now."

After two days of theory, we're ready to take to the tracks with our engine and a twenty-five ton brake van. The footplate heaves and sways like a sailing yacht leaving harbour as the 'C' Class backs ponderously away from the sheds and gathers momentum.

And it is a bit like sailing. The engine responds in slow motion, five or six seconds after touching the controls, so you have to anticipate every move. Working in pairs as driver and fireman, we potter around the station until everyone has practised stopping precisely in pre-arranged places.

The next day is similar, though by now we're confident enough to begin 'buffering up'; nosing the 'C' Class up to a train and gently compressing the buffers before coupling up. Meanwhile, in the brake van, the off-duty crews have time to relax, soak up the atmosphere - and pick holes in any rough shunting. "It's a bit like bungee jumping, isn't it?" says Steve, as a sharp bit of braking brings us lurching to a halt.

At the end of each day's running, there's still plenty to do. The tender must be left full of coal and water, and the cab stacked with wood for lighting tomorrow's fire. The ash pan needs raking out, there's a barrow-load of soot in the smokebox, and wheel bearings must be checked for overheating.

The crews need looking after, too, and Clive sends us home with a shopping list. The engine, he explains, "is just like a great big Aga" and, when time allowed, enginemen cooked their meals on the fireman's shovel. Tomorrow, he'll show us how it's done.

But lunch is a long way off when we clock on at 7.30am to raise steam. A couple of hours later the loco is oiled and polished, and standing in the sidings with fire in her belly and steam in her boiler. There's just time for a quick cuppa before setting off with our first train.

Running a special timetable between Sheffield Park and Kingscote gives everyone a chance to drive and fire the 'C' Class over the whole eight miles of single track. The regular passenger trains can only pass us at stations so, if anything goes wrong, the Operations Manager won't be terribly pleased!

It's a stiff climb for most of the way north, and the firemen have their work cut out keeping steam pressure up to the mark. We stop briefly at Horsted Keynes before pressing on through West Hoathly tunnel to the charming little station at Kingscote. Here we change crews, uncouple the engine, and run round the brake van for the journey back to Sheffield Park.

By lunchtime we're ready for that fry-up and, after sterilising the shovel with scalding steam from the injectors, we poke it into the firebox and rest the handle on an upturned bucket.

The toast is ready in no time, and soon bacon, sausages and fried eggs are piling up on the warm cast iron shelf above the firehole doors. "This is wonderful" says Chris Sprules, a Project Manager with Commercial Union, leaning back happily in a corner of the cab. "The executive restaurant at work just won't seem the same next week!"

© David Foster 1998