Earliest memories of Railways

[NorthBrit]

What are your memories of Railways 'when you were a young'un'?

 

The one that is the earliest in my memory is ---------------

Being an orphan from three days old  I lived with an Uncle and Aunt and two cousins until I was three years of age. Therefore it was at that time. (When I was four I lived with my Grandma and Granddad.)

If I was three, then it was the Summer of 1950. Aunt and Uncle decided to take us to Bridlington for the week.

It was a Saturday morning. Suitcases were packed. The excitement of going on holiday.

As my Uncle had to work Saturday, he was to follow us the following day. (Six day working days were the 'norm' then.

I remember how dark, dingy and very smoky the area around the ticket office at Leeds City Station was. My two cousins (Jean, 7 yr old and Margaret, 5 year old) and I watched as my Aunt bought our train tickets. Carefully she placed them in her handbag.

With having two suitcases a Porter was needed and one was immediately on hand. Loading the cases on his hand barrow he asked "Which train."
"Bridlington," Aunt replied. To which we scurried after the Porter to our waiting train.

At last we boarded the train. Aunt lifted the suitcases on to the luggage rack above and we settled down in our compartment.
Looking out at the platform, a huge Station Clock gave the time of 08.56. Aunt smiled as our train was not due to depart until 09.37.
Another elderly married couple joined us in the compartment.

Aunt looked out of the window and saw, not twenty yards away, a lady with a tea trolley. The clock said 09.04. Plenty of time.
"There isn't a queue I shall get some tea," said Aunt and alighted from the carriage.

No sooner than she had bought the tea, she turned, saw and heard the engine take the strain an began the Schhuff, Schhuff, Schuff. The time was 09.07.

Pandemonium struck in the carriage. Three of us screamed "Mam." Tears streaming down our cheeks

We were some way out of Leeds by the time the other couple in our carriage managed to calm us down.
The Ticket Inspector arrived. Off course we had no tickets. Aunt still had them in her handbag. The Ticket inspector was dubious to our story, but we stayed on board.

Finally we arrived at Bridlington. The elderly couple had their own suitcases, but they also helped us with ours.
At the ticket barrier, the Inspector allowed us through to the other side, but had to wait there until the next train from Leeds arrived. The elderly couple waited with us.

Thirty minutes later, the train from Leeds arrived. Amid tears of joy, Aunt thanked the elderly couple.

The 09.07 departure to Bridlington from Leeds was a 'Duplicate' and not in the timetable.

The week in Brid was great.

[Phil Bullock]

Nice idea!

 

Not sure which came first but will relate this one - its a toss up between this and greeting my Uncle off the train at Worcester Shrub Hill.

 

So my Mother was evacuated from Birmingham during WW2 to Worcester. She settled in Ombersley but her mother was still in Handsworth - Lodge Road, opposite Winson Green Prison. If as I suspect this event was late 50s then I was age 4 or 5 when Mother announced that Gran had fallen and broken her leg and was in a convalescence home - and we were to visit her. Mum didn't drive and Dad couldn't get time off work - and we didn't use trains - so Midland Red buses would get us there.

 

That was the 315 from Ombersley in to Worcester followed by the 144 to Bromsgrove - and then I cannot remember what to the home. I was not impressed and we arrived with me in the dumps and not looking forwards at all to the visit. We were shown on to the ward where Gran was one or two beds in from the door. After 5 minutes - probably less - I must have been getting restless as Gran suggested I went to the end of the ward and looked out of the huge bay windows - on paradise! We were at Blackwell, and the Lickey Incline passed by but a hundred yards away - a succession of steam hauled and banked trains. I did not want to go home...

 

Poor Gran - but she understood, and was only too happy to provide me with accommodation in years to come when with a few more years under my belt I wanted to spend as much time as possible at Birmingham New Street.

 

Heres the home - https://www.birminghamforum.co.uk/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=164.0;attach=11888;image  - and you can see its proximity to the railway in my Xmas greeting at 

Its just peeping over the 47!

 

Happy days!

Edited December 26, 2019 by Phil Bullock

[tigerburnie]

1954, family moved into a brand new house about 100 yards from the Great Central line in south Leicestershire, windows rattling in the wooden frames, first proper train memory was Flying Fox pulling the up Master Cutler express on the same bit of line, probably in 1956.

[Nearholmer]

Not anything like as potentially traumatic as Northbrit’s memory, but it certainly involved wide-eyed awe/terror: clinging-on to someone’s hand, presumably my mother’s, on Woking station, as what was probably a Merchant Navy bore down on the station at full tilt, then roared by with train in tow.

 

The sound is what I really recall: not the classic ‘steam train puff’, but a sort of continuous very deep purring sound, getting nearer and nearer, and louder and louder, then wham! A sort of aural explosion as the loco itself passed.

 

I’m not sure how old I was at this point, but I was very young, maybe only two.

 

It certainly left an impression!

[rab]

I spent my early days in a house within earshot of the station.

I used to be woken in the mornings by the sound

of wagons being shunted in the yard.

 

[Pacific231G]

I think the very earliest was when I was three and recuperating from an eye operation in a convalesence home near Birmingham. We were taken for a walk down to the nearby station where, apart from rattling a stick in a fence on the station approach road,  I remember thinking the oval lavatory windows of a passing train unusual. So, though I don't have any earlier memories I must have been aware of how trains normally looked before that. Looking at Phil's post I wonder if it was also Blackwell though I'm sure we walked down a road to the station, which couldn't have been more than a couple or three hundred yards away and not steps.

 

Much stronger memories are from a family holiday soon after that to my grandfather's house in Burnham-on-Sea. He was a signalman at Highbridge so I remember being in his box drinking tea made with condensed milk, "helping" to push a loco round on the turntable at Highbridge and riding on the footplate of a loco from Highbridge to Basonbridge and back, presumably a milk train or its empties- I remember the driver telling me that I would remember where I'd been if I imagined a bridge crossing a wash basin. I can remember a signalbox with a gate wheel - presumably Highbridge East 'B' box on the S&D Burnham branch- and one with a little window at the back below which there was another line line. I assume this was the GW Highbridge Crossing box. I don't know if he worked in both these boxes or whether we just visited the East B box.  

 

Probably a bit later was a family holiday to Ryde I ofW where I can remember being very impressed by the sight of four trains lined up at Ryde Pierhead after we got off the ferry (which I don't remember). We actually used the tram to get to Esplanade- where we were staying in  a guest house  though I have no memory of that- and I remember the tram being very crowded. I also have a rather indistinct memory of being in a carriage going to Sandown or Shanklin with the rain running down the windows. Apart from that, all I can remember from that holiday was the coloured sand at Blackgang Chine filling a glass lighthouse in layers that I think we must have bought. I think I can remember waiting for the train (not the tram)  at Ryde Esplanade to get the ferry back to the mainland.

Edited December 26, 2019 by Pacific231G

[Steamport Southport]

Earliest memory of trains is a very vague memory of the original Liverpool Central. Journey from my nan's near Gateacre to town. I even remember the trains were blue. I assume it was one of the last trains before it closed. Possibly the last day as it was rare for my family to travel by train without good reason.

 

Not bad for someone who was about two at the time.

 

 

 

Jason

[eastglosmog]

I have a number of jumbled early memories of trains.  Many of traveling up and down Hythe pier in the pier railway but that being a monthly occurrence when the family headed to Southampton for a shopping expedition, not entirely sure what age I was.  One trip on a green District line train when traveling to visit an elderly great aunt in Richmond (London, that is, not Yorkshire) is probably the earliest memory of a standard gauge railway when I must have been 5/6.  Can't remember anything of the train journey from Southampton to Waterloo that must have preceded it. (probably boring dirty old steam locos instead of fascinating clean electric trains).

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

44 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

...The sound is what I really recall: not the classic ‘steam train puff’, but a sort of continuous very deep purring sound, getting nearer and nearer, and louder and louder, then wham! A sort of aural explosion as the loco itself passed...

The very same thing, the deep whum-whum-whum of a fast approaching A4 running up to KX, and then the wallop! as it roared past and away. Smitten at two and a half, precisely dateable because we were on WGC up platform awaiting the local service to Hatfield, having just visited my mother and newly arrived brother at the nearby nursing home.

[steve1]

My dad was a fitter at Slough shed, 81B, when I was born so I was frequently down there from when I could walk. I "drove" a Pannier up the coal road when I couldn't have been more than 5.

 

steve

[NorthBrit]

Another memory  ----

 

 

I remember (it must have been 1952) visiting family in Shankhouse, near Blyth, Northumberland, seeing very old looking coal wagons with NER on the side. The 0.6.0 tender engine was black in colour with no lettering on it. (Don't ask what Class of engine it was. I only knew there were 'big' engines and 'small engines  )

The whole scene looked dilapidated; what with the old wagons, the long overgrown grass the train looked to be running through.

The track must have been worse for wear, because a wagon derailed. It must have been a regular occurrence, has the Fireman immediately climbed down from the engine and lifted (yes lifted) the errant wagon back on to the track. No 'elf'n'safety required.

Shortly afterwards the line closed. (Well before Dr Beeching)

Perhaps seeing scenes like this have 'stuck in my mind' and a railway is not all 'prim and proper'.

[Kingzance]

Living on the Isle of Wight between 1950 and 1964, my first memories of railways involved 0-4-4 and 0-6-0 tank engines, all bearing numbers of less than three digits, always black, some lined and a few bearing names of island villages. It was only later that my interests grew sufficiently to enquire about the provenance of these beasts.  My first memory of rail travel would have been around 1952 taking one such train from Newport to Lake, the station between Sandown and Shanklin which was then served by a direct route unlike the stunted system of the present that runs between Ryde, Sandown and Shanklin. The purpose of that trip was the Sunday School Summer Outing and no catastrophes are etched in my memory. Normally, we travelled around the island on green Southern Vectis buses until we obtained our first car, a very early Ford of 20’s or 30’s vintage. By the age of eight and with a Hercules bicycle, the island was my (and my fishing tackle’s) oyster.

Edited December 26, 2019 by Kingzance
Spelling again.

[F-UnitMad]

Aged 3, 1970. An all-blue DMU ride from Birmingham to Sutton Coldfield, where we lived then.

What I remember most is crying because I didn't want to get off the train, and the noise of people's footsteps up the ramp from the platform & through the ticket office at Sutton. The floors were all wooden boards, and the noise was tremendous, & one I long associated with trains.

I haven't been to Sutton in decades: I've no idea what the station is like now!!

I also remember seeing B'ham Snow Hill from the bus about then, it was virtually derelict by then & closed completely in 1972.

Another early memory I have, not quite railway related, is the Walsall trolleybus service, which closed late in 1970. Inside the bus, I saw the conductor winding the destination blinds round, but I thought he was winding the bus up - I must have had a clockwork toy at the time, & for some years after refered to the trolleybuses as "electric winder buses"!!!

It wasn't until 1977 that a mate of mine who was a bit older took me trainspotting one day, & I got properly interested in trains. The next year I got a Hornby HST trainset.....

I just can't quite believe how long ago it was, now..!!

[Mark Forrest]

Mine would be a family day trip to London in the early '80s, being lifted up to peer into the cab of a loco standing at the buffer stops at a terminus station.  I specifically remember being intrigued by the "steering wheel" in the cab (which I now know would have been the handbrake, obviously).  Think it would have been too late for Deltics at Kings Cross, so have always assumed it was Peaks at St Pancras.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Summer 1950, New Street platform 3, age about 2. 'Uncle Bill', a Monument Lane driver, was married to ny great aunt. We were about to go on my first train ride other than as a baby, to visit a wartime ATS friend of my mother who lived in Sussex. Dad took me to New Street to see a train he knew Bill would be driving on the excuse of familiarising me with the surroundings. I was lifted onto the footplate and up to pull the whistle. Unfortunately I don't know what the loco was but from the cab layout I would guess a Black 5 or Jubilee.

The first loco I can positively identify was spamcan 'Yes Tor' which would have been at Ilfracombe in the early 1950s. I also remember being at Plymouth North Road at about 5am on an overnight train from Wolverhampton in 1952. While we were there I remember seeing two highly polished green engines running light. 

First rolling stock I clearly remember riding in was in Southern Railway green livery on the Swanage branch in 1953.  

Non-railway but still on rails I remeber riding the 'Lickey tram' from Birmingham to Rednal. The route closed in July 1952.

[Phil Bullock]

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I think the very earliest was when I was three and recuperating from an eye operation in a convalesence home near Birmingham. We were taken for a walk down to the nearby station where, apart from rattling a stick in a fence on the station approach road,  I remember thinking the oval lavatory windows of a passing train unusual. So, though I don't have any earlier memories I must have been aware of how trains normally looked before that. Looking at Phil's post I wonder if it was also Blackwell though I'm sure we walked down a road to the station, which couldn't have been more than a couple or three hundred yards away and not steps.

 

Much stronger memories are from a family holiday soon after that to my grandfather's house in Burnham-on-Sea. He was a signalman at Highbridge so I remember being in his box drinking tea made with condensed milk, "helping" to push a loco round on the turntable at Highbridge and riding on the footplate of a loco from Highbridge to Basonbridge and back, presumably a milk train or its empties- I remember the driver telling me that I would remember where I'd been if I imagined a bridge crossing a wash basin. I can remember a signalbox with a gate wheel - presumably Highbridge East 'B' box on the S&D Burnham branch- and one with a little window at the back below which there was another line line. I assume this was the GW Highbridge Crossing box. I don't know if he worked in both these boxes or whether we just visited the East B box.  

 

Probably a bit later was a family holiday to Ryde I ofW where I can remember being very impressed by the sight of four trains lined up at Ryde Pierhead after we got off the ferry (which I don't remember). We actually used the tram to get to Esplanade- where we were staying in  a guest house  though I have no memory of that- and I remember the tram being very crowded. I also have a rather indistinct memory of being in a carriage going to Sandown or Shanklin with the rain running down the windows. Apart from that, all I can remember from that holiday was the coloured sand at Blackgang Chine filling a glass lighthouse in layers that I think we must have bought. I think I can remember waiting for the train (not the tram)  at Ryde Esplanade to get the ferry back to the mainland.

 

Have a look at this one David and see if it chimes .... there were certainly railings along the footpath next to the railway between the home and the station...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXD659VTJvg

 

 

[petethemole]

I was mad about trains from a very early age, being taken in my pushchair to watch trains locally on the Midland main line.  Grandparents lived within sight of the ECML at Hitchin and by standing on a chair in their front bedroom I could watch the trains, as well as going on walks down to a local bridge.  I remember blue as well as green locos, and teak coaches among the blood & custard. I used to visit their allotment overlooking Hitchin Civil Engineers' yard; I was fascinated by the steam cranes that were always busy, even on Sundays.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Phil Bullock said:

 

Have a look at this one David and see if it chimes .... there were certainly railings along the footpath next to the railway between the home and the station...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXD659VTJvg

 

 

Thanks Phil

It doesn't ring any particular bells but that very early memory is extremely sketchy so if Blackwell was a recovery hospital for children as well as adults then it's a very strong contendor expecially as its address was Station Road Blackwell and I think we did walk down a road to the station. This would have been 1953-1954 as I  was young enough to be in a cot rather than a bed in the Birmigham hospital that carried out the squint correction. I think the carriages with the circular WC windows (Midland?) may have been custard and cream but can't be sure.

Edited December 27, 2019 by Pacific231G

[tomparryharry]

Forest Hill station, on the up-side platform. Watching the platform ticket inspector seeing the train away.  My dad holding me up upon the wall on Crystal Palace Parade, to look upon the partially deserted Crystal Palace station. At that time, the scrim & cargo nets were still in situ, to catch falling masonry. 

Bulleid light pacifics pausing for a brew-up on Forest Hill Bank.  Light locomotives Standard class 4) going the other way. 

 

My first ever recollection of a 350 hp shunter, also passing Forest hill station, but on the down side.  Running to greet my elder sister on Holborn station. 

 

That'll do for now, too many memories.....

[The Johnster]

My earliest memory is from 1955, as Mother told me later that I was 3 years old when the journey took place.  Mother and me were travelling to Liverpool to meet Father aboard a ship he was working on, on the 00.05 Cardiff (General)-Liverpool.  I slept for most of the run but awoke at (mum says) Church Stretton, where the guard was walking the length of the platform extinguishing the platform lights.  I could not say whether these were oil or gas, but they were certainly not electric and had flames that went out.  The loco, probably a Canton Castle but there's a possibility it was a Star, was blowing off loudly and it was raining heavily; very atmospheric.  The coach was almost certainly a Collett flat ender much like the old Mainline model. 

 

My next memory is of (Great) Uncle Ted taking me to see the Britannia on the 'Red Dragon' in '56; 70026 Polar Star repaired with the smoke deflector handrail replaced by the brass rimmed hand holds after it's crash the previous year at Milton, and spotlessly clean as Canton Brits always were.   

[Rivercider]

I have no one specific memory, but like others I have an amalgamation of different memories from the early 1960s.

From our house we could here the shunting at Exmouth Junction, which probably explains my interest in freight trains.

I also remember train trips to the 'seaside' often Exmouth, but also elsewhere in Devon and Cornwall, where I saw 'palm' trees (cordyline)

 

cheers

[Chris M]

I was born in 1955. My first and somewhat vague memories of trains come from Bromsgrove station. My Dad used to take me and my big brother there on the odd Saturday or Sunday. I was very young but I certainly a recall big black engine with lots of wheels which must have been the 9F banker. I remember the signals clanking and the anticipation of another train coming and I remember when I went to bed after spending time at Bromsgrove. I closed my eyes and just saw loads of track and trains.  I know this was early in my life because Dad stopped taking us when the diesels took over. He didn't think it was anywhere near so interesting for us lads by the time it was mostly diesels. I was too young to disagree.

[Colin_McLeod]

Earliest memories are of Lisburn station on the GNR(I) in the mid 1950s. Taken there by my Father to see the trains.  I have very clear memories of everything including cab rides on the footplate as the loco was running round the train.

 

He also took me in the train to Belfast many times. Sometimes by bus but we always came home in the train.  I remember seeing Adelaide loco sheds from the train but never got out at Adelaide for a closer look until after it was closed.

 

Before that I travelled as a baby on the old GNR(I) route from Derry to Portadown but obviously have no memories of that.

 

In 1959 I travelled with my parents from Heysham to Newcastle upon Tyne and have clear recollections of that trip, and the return journey with my Mother (Dad stayed on for a few weeks with his job in the BBC) including passing the slag heaps along the way, and a whole afternoon on the roof of the Keep at Newcastle watching the Pacifics leaving the station with long express trains.

 

Fast forward to 1966 I also remember the day my Father took me from Belfast York Road to Derry to try out the then brand new UTA DEMU trains, later to be known as the 70 class.  Fast timings and full restaurant car facilities was the order of the day.

 

Than you NorthBrit for starting this thread and refreshing pleasant memories.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2019 by Colin_McLeod
Typos crept in despite best efforts.

[TheQ]

Born late 1957, I'm guessing my first railway journey, would have been from the nearest Railway Station to where dad was posted (RAF Colerne) to Swindon then down the old MSWJR line to Ludgershall that Christmas, to be presented to my grandparents. 

It is there my first memory of railways is,  some time in the next few years looking from my ganger grandfathers house to the yard, steam Loco shunting.  I can't remember through trains as, they stopped in 1961..

[bob hughes60]

I must have been 3 or 4 so 1953/4. A holiday at Borth in Wales. 

Not in a caravan but our accomodation was a converted double decker bus.

As a little lad I could not quite believe it, our own bus and trains as well as the journey from Wolves and back on a WR train.

I watched the trains go through the "camp site" on sunny days that seemed to last forever, drivers and fireman would wave back.