Nurse with spirit sat on top of express locomotive (6)
I believe the answer is:
engine
'locomotive' is the definition.
(I know that locomotive can be written as engine)
'nurse with spirit sat on top of express' is the wordplay.
'nurse' becomes 'en' (abbreviation for enrolled nurse).
'with spirit' becomes 'gin' (alcoholic spirit. I am not sure about the 'with' bit.).
'sat on' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'top of' indicates taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'express' is 'e'.
'en'+'gin'+'e'='ENGINE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for engine that I've seen before include "Machine with moving parts" , "Locomotive" , "Motive machine" , "turn of mind once" , "Power unit" .)