Earliest memories of Railways

[NorthBrit]

2 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

 

Another visit I remember was in 1954 being taken to the Birmingham New Street Centenary, with 46235, LNWR 'Hardwicke', a Kirtley 2-4-0, two Royal Saloons and Edwardian LNWR and Midland coaches.

 

For TheSignalEngineer

 

 

 

[Reorte]

It's very hard to say to be honest, I don't have much in the way of early clear memories, just some vague impressions, probably from when I was four or five and travelling to my grandparents in Derby (this will be early 80s). There was always an odd smell about the stations (probably from whatever was used to clean up after late-night visitors), and I can remember the trolleys clanking around as much as the trains, although that could also be from slightly later memories. One odd one I do remember though from about that time is noticing the tumblehome shape of the carriages.

 

A bit later on, probably when I was seven or eight, I'd got a book on railways that gave me the simplest basics about signalling - enough so that I spent quite a bit of time peering out of the windows at the signals to see if we were going to stop or not, at least on semaphore signalled lines (hadn't figured out the colour lights). Which was probably on services between Derby (where we were living near to then) to Crewe via Uttoxeter, on the way to visit my other grandparents; I always recall changing at Crewe for the trip to Penrith, although oddly enough very little about Crewe station itself. Now I think about it would that have been Derby to Crewe then a change? In hindsight Stoke sounds more likely.

[pH]

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

Which was probably on services between Derby (where we were living near to then) to Crewe via Uttoxeter, on the way to visit my other grandparents; I always recall changing at Crewe for the trip to Penrith, although oddly enough very little about Crewe station itself. Now I think about it would that have been Derby to Crewe then a change? In hindsight Stoke sounds more likely.

 

Almost certainly changing at Crewe. In the mid-1970s, we lived near Long Eaton and worked in Nottingham. Travelling to Glasgow, we would normally use the Thames-Clyde from Nottingham, leaving in the morning. However, an option was to work a morning, then take a train from Nottingham through Derby to Crewe, and change there for Glasgow.

[jpendle]

I have no memories of trains at all in my early days.

 

When I was around 10 or 11 we used to take the train from Westhoughton, change at Man Vic, and then go to Dean Lane. We had a very old relative who lived there and we visited on a monthly basis. I don't remember anything about the trains though.

 

My first clear memories are from quite late on in my teens.

 

From where we lived in Westhoughton we always took the bus to either Bolton or Wigan rather than the train because the buses stopped outside our house but the railway station was a good 10-15 minute walk. There was a similar issue on arrival at Bolton as the bus station was in the town center unlike Trinity street. I also took two buses to school in Bolton as the train wasn't an option.

 

Anyhow, whilst out drinking with mates on a Friday in the late 70's, it became apparent that getting the train was a far better way to travel back home.

 

Pubs closed at 11pm, last bus left at 10:30pm, but the last train left at 11:30pm!

 

So memories are a bit blurred but primarily blue DMU's, with a solitary Class 40 on an engineers north bound welded steel rail working, using the centre road at Trinity Street, that has since been ripped up.

I remember drunkenly marvelling that the lengths of rail didn't fling the wagons from the tracks as they took the curves at Bolton North heading for Lostock Junction.

 

Regards,

 

John P

[pirouets]

For me its easy as the 1st house I lived in backed on to the Waterloo line just up from Ashtead station which makes it 1970. Along with that I remember dad having a small shed with a layout. We moved that year but I can still remember standing on the bridge at the edge of the common waiting for a train to wave at. After growing up I then had the joy/suffering of being a commuter to Waterloo for 6 months before getting a shift based job which made commuting far more pleasant.

[88C]

I suppose my earliest memories must come from staying with my Grandparents in Barry for our annual two week stay. The house overlooked the railway and I can remember how the china cabinet rattled when a coal train went along the Vale of Glamorgan line. My Grandfather worked at the offices in Barry docks so no doubt that was an influence. I have posted this photo on my Llanforen thread but it is worth putting it here as well and that will explain a lot.

 

 

 

Like Butler Henderson, I can also remember crossing the footbridge over Nottingham Victoria station. Another Nottingham memory is being at Broad Marsh bus station and waving at the engine drivers passing on the GC viaduct above, they often waved back.

 

Details of types of engine etc. are missing but I do think I called pannier tanks matchbox  engines. I must admit that my knowledge of railways is rather superficial even now even though I have had plenty of years to learn. (I was born in the year of nationalisation).

 

Brian

[pH]

For my first six and a half years, we lived in Glasgow, just west of Cardonald station on the former Glasgow and Paisley Joint line – the only significant 4-track (at that time) stretch of track in Scotland. From my bedroom window, I could see the exhaust of trains passing along the line, though I can't remember actually seeing any trains from there – there was a sawmill in the way. However, playing in the park across the railway, you could see a steady procession of passing trains.

 

Memories of specific engines from that time (I remembered the names – the numbers came from looking them up later):

- 46222 'Queen Mary' at the buffers in Glasgow Central – the image I have fits with platform 11

- 61772 'Loch Lochy' of Parkhead shed waiting at Cardonald Junction to take a freight out of Braehead

- 60034 'Lord Faringdon' on the down 'Elizabethan' during a holiday at Dunbar

 

I also have a memory which I have difficulty in placing. We were in a train, stopped in a station, and saw another train, hauled by one or two 4-4-0s, passing on a higher line. My guess is that it was at Bogston station in Greenock, and the other train was on the climb from Wemyss Bay Junction on the line to Wemyss Bay. We could have been going to visit my gran, who would have been staying in Dunoon at that time.

 

I also remember seeing NBL-built steam locos being slung onto a ship for export by the Finnieston Crane.

[rocor]

My earliest memories of trains, were seeing them from my paternal grandparents back garden, which backed onto the section of line that ran between Bromley South and Bickley stations. Mostly they were southern region emu's, but occasionally something a little more interesting would come along.

 

 

[Torper]

Inadvertantly leaving my new Dinky Foden 8-wheeler behind on the night sleeper from Perth to Euston on the annual visit down south to visit  grandparents in Bournemouth.  I was heartbroken - surprised it didn"t put me off railways for life. I also seem to remember eating kippers in the restaurant car in the morning train from Waterloo to Bournemouth but am not absolutely sure about that one - it was well over 60 years ago! I was also fascinated by the Southern Region"s third rail electrics - where's the engine?

 

DT

[Rugd1022]

Deleted post.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Rugd1022

[Rugd1022]

On 02/01/2020 at 21:48, 88C said:

I suppose my earliest memories must come from staying with my Grandparents in Barry for our annual two week stay. The house overlooked the railway and I can remember how the china cabinet rattled when a coal train went along the Vale of Glamorgan line. My Grandfather worked at the offices in Barry docks so no doubt that was an influence. I have posted this photo on my Llanforen thread but it is worth putting it here as well and that will explain a lot.

 

 

 

Like Butler Henderson, I can also remember crossing the footbridge over Nottingham Victoria station. Another Nottingham memory is being at Broad Marsh bus station and waving at the engine drivers passing on the GC viaduct above, they often waved back.

 

Details of types of engine etc. are missing but I do think I called pannier tanks matchbox  engines. I must admit that my knowledge of railways is rather superficial even now even though I have had plenty of years to learn. (I was born in the year of nationalisation).

 

Brian

 

If it weren't for the smoke and steam Brian I'd swear that was a photo of a beautiful N gauge layout....!

[Ben B]

Being taken in my pushchair to Langley Green Station and level crossing by my gran in the mid 80's, to watch the "grey trains" (1st-gen DMU's, out of Tysely Depot I assume) as well as 150's in light blue going past the field near the house (as well as a special trip out to see a diverted swallow-livery HST, the height of excitement when all you usually see are units!).  Weird how memories stick with you, getting bread and ham for sandwiches from a corner shop on the way, and being utterly terrified of the drop-hammers in a forge between the level crossing and the Zion where my playgroup was held (and where I used to get in trouble for spending all the time standing on the top of an old wooden climbing frame in the main hall, so I could stare out the window at the railway bridge!)

 

 

Found this pic in an old family album, taken on the line at the time.  Interesting transition livery on the 150...

 

I can remember the old, brick-built station building at Langley prior to rebuilding, and I can also just remember being lifted up by my dad to look over the brick wall at the nearby Albrights and Wilsons chemical works to see a diesel shunting tanker wagons.  

 

 

[OhOh]

Possibly not my earliest railway memory, but certainly one of my most vivid -

 

1965/66'ish - Dad and I were going to our first ever model railway exhibition, at Central Hall Westminster I think. Being 5 or 6 years old it was possibly the most excited I'd ever been in my life up to that point.

 

We'd travelled in from Metroland, changed trains somewhere and boarded what Dad told me was the Circle Line. I was fascinated and as happy as a happy young boy on a day out with his dad could ever be, overjoyed to hear that a real railway went round and round just like my own train set at home. 

 

Somewhere in the deep, dark, noisy gloom between 2 stations was when Dad, with his somewhat evil sense of humour, thought it'd be funny to tell me that he'd lost my ticket and that therefore I would have to stay on the train going round and round, all alone, while he went to the exhibition. 

 

EAR-SHATTERING SCREAMS filled the carriage, tears rolled down my reddening cheeks and snot flowed uncontrollably from my nose as I went into total melt-down, unable to draw breath or see or hear Dad as he frantically tried to calm me down and reassure me it was all a joke. I can't recall if it was more the terror at the thought of being left on the train or upset at not being able to go to the show, probably both, but he obviously did manage to calm me somehow and we made it to the show where my eyes just grew wider and wider at the sight of so many "trainsets" - more than I imagined there ever could be.

 

Probably scarred me for life And I'll never know quite what the other passengers made of the little boy repeatedly asking "Dad, have you got my ticket?" inbetween every station on the train ride home - probably found me rather annoying.
 

 

[Kingzance]

16 hours ago, OhOh said:

Possibly not my earliest railway memory, but certainly one of my most vivid -

 

1965/66'ish - Dad and I were going to our first ever model railway exhibition, at Central Hall Westminster I think. Being 5 or 6 years old it was possibly the most excited I'd ever been in my life up to that point.

 

We'd travelled in from Metroland, changed trains somewhere and boarded what Dad told me was the Circle Line. I was fascinated and as happy as a happy young boy on a day out with his dad could ever be, overjoyed to hear that a real railway went round and round just like my own train set at home. 

 

Somewhere in the deep, dark, noisy gloom between 2 stations was when Dad, with his somewhat evil sense of humour, thought it'd be funny to tell me that he'd lost my ticket and that therefore I would have to stay on the train going round and round, all alone, while he went to the exhibition. 

 

EAR-SHATTERING SCREAMS filled the carriage, tears rolled down my reddening cheeks and snot flowed uncontrollably from my nose as I went into total melt-down, unable to draw breath or see or hear Dad as he frantically tried to calm me down and reassure me it was all a joke. I can't recall if it was more the terror at the thought of being left on the train or upset at not being able to go to the show, probably both, but he obviously did manage to calm me somehow and we made it to the show where my eyes just grew wider and wider at the sight of so many "trainsets" - more than I imagined there ever could be.

 

Probably scarred me for life And I'll never know quite what the other passengers made of the little boy repeatedly asking "Dad, have you got my ticket?" inbetween every station on the train ride home - probably found me rather annoying.
 

 

What a delightful account of clearly a moving (and scarring) event for you. Thank you very much for sharing it. I, living on the farthest flung outpost of the former Empire (Isle of Wight to be precise), could but wonder at anything not filthy, not steam powered and not full-sized! An affluent friend had a tinplate O gauge thing, I was occasionally allowed to go and play with his toy and that might have sown the seed for my interest in the hobby.

[Dave Hunt]

Until I was three we lived with my maternal grandparents in Runcorn and my earliest recollection of trains was travelling from Runcorn to Liverpool. One day, probably when I was three in 1950, I remember being at Runcorn station when a goods train, which I think may have been coming off the ICI branch and was waiting for the main line, was stationary near the end of the platform and Dad took me along to look at the engine - probably an 8F. As we got there the safety valves lifted with a roar and I think the driver opened the cylinder taps, which frightened the beejayzus out of me and I ran off down the platform. It took a while and a bit of coaching from Dad before I would go near a locomotive again but after we moved to Wavertree next door to my uncle who was a fitter at Edge Hill I learned to love them.

 

Dave

[caradoc]

My earliest railway memories are of family holidays in the 60s; Seeing Warship 'Sharpshooter' at Oxford on the way out (and becoming separated from my parents and sisters on the platform too, fortunately we were re-united !), somehow that name stuck in my mind. And being scared by a filthy steam loco at Bristol Temple Meads on the way home, maybe the same holiday; I would estimate 1966 or 67, not being sure when steam finished at Bristol. It didn't put me off trains however !

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by caradoc
Spelling mistake

[Gwiwer]

I clearly remember being in my pram and somehow loaded aboard the Marlow Donkey.  Probably into the guard's van.  And unloaded again soon afterwards which would have been at Bourne End.  At that time the journey would have been from our short-term home to my grandparent's home for which we alighted at West Drayton & Yiewsley Junction for Uxbridge and Staines.  I would have been less than six months old.  

 

The next clear memory is of a trip from West Drayton to Staines West.  As my sister had yet to arrive I would have been less than 2 years old.  We stopped at Colnbrook but nowhere else and grandfather explained that the train only stopped at the little stations if someone wanted to get on or off.  Like a bus which only served request stops if asked, he said.  I had already gained an understanding of the London Transport system of compulsory (white flag) and request (red flag) stops and knew that my grandparents' local stop required a grown-up to ring the bell before getting off.  

 

Around the time my sister arrived I was often taken to the house of family friends which, conveniently, backed onto the main line at West Drayton.  I'm sure my parents needed the time and space to adapt to a new (home-birth) arrival and is suited them to have me otherwise occupied and able to watch the trains passing by.  Some were steam.  Most were diesel.  

 

[MarkC]

1965 or so. Being taken to Freshfield station to watch the Southport-Euston through carriages, hauled by a steam loco (usually a Stanier 2-6-4T, as I have subsequently found out). I always wanted to stand on the footbridge as it departed

 

Then, a little later, being taken to London by my Dad on one of the (then) new electric trains from Liverpool to Euston, and seeing all the steam locos in what I now know to be the Basford Hall area outside Crewe, awaiting their final call to locomotive Valhalla

 

Mark

[MJI]

I have a few and no idea of sequence.

 

One is seeing my dad off to go abroad with RAF for a year, from Gloucester Eastgate.

 

I can remember the following.

 

1) Maroon Warship

2) Mix of Maroon and Blue Grey stock 90% sure Mark 1

 

I can remember bulgy front and the colour.

 

Another, seeing steam loco somewhere.

 

Finally Travelling to Cornwall, corridor coach, bouncy ride, 75% sure BS gangways. Saw various locos all grubby, some steam, some 08s.

[Markwj]

I think my earliest memory is seeing the big yellow face of the dmu pulling into the platform at Warrington central to take us to oxford road Manchester where we would get off and catch the bus to see my gran at blackley.

This was the 1970's and have no idea what class of dmu it was ?108 ?115 but I recall the all over blue Livery.

we didn't have a car and usually the may bank holiday week we would get a railway runabout ticket with a daily trip on the train usually Liverpool, Windermere, Blackpool, southport, Rhyl, Llandudno or Manchester and it was a daily trip to bank quay or central to catch the train, my dad would cycle to the station to save bus fare. We were on the bus with mum she couldn't ride a bike!

Happy days.

[Welly]

My parents told me that I was fascinated by trains since I was 6 months old so I could not possibly remember my first sighting of a train!

 

I do remember a train journey from Lincoln to Wymondham with my Mum when I was 4 years old, a locomotive hauled service (probably a 47 from the horn sound) to Peterborough, the long boring wait in the waiting room at Peterborough, sitting behind the driver in a DMU out of Peterborough - can't remember changing at Ely or not - then being lifted out of the train by Grandad at Wymondham.

[Reorte]

Model railways rather than 1:1 ones, and my nephew instead of me, but I'll have to ask him if he remembers being dragged along in tow to an exhibition when he was two (I was a bit worried about taking him but my brother fancied coming along and insisted on dragging his son). There was a roundy-roundy that got a "Yeah!" from him every time a train came along, and on another "Uh-oh!" at a derailment.

 

[45156]

Oh gosh, it takes me back about 64 years, and was just a train trip to Kilmarnock, and I didn't note the loco type. and as I was three, I think that this was excusable, but would have probably been an LMS 2P, as that was what Hurlford put on all the locals then.

 

But my real memories started when my dad's cousin, who was a very senior official at Crewe, started to nurture my interest in railways, and took me to various sheds, where he was known, and as he was an LMS man through and through, these were always ex LMS sheds, like Ayr, where he was a great friend of Bill Bennett, the shedmaster, and in Edinburgh when a trip to Dalry Road resulted in my first footplate trip on a Black 5 to Perth, and back on a BR Standard (I think) class 4 tank, with a driver called Gordon, but he really took a back seat, as dad's cousin did all the driving, and I was looked after by Gordon and his fireman.

 

 

[thirty2a]

On 26/02/2020 at 09:13, Welly said:

My parents told me that I was fascinated by trains since I was 6 months old so I could not possibly remember my first sighting of a train!

 

I do remember a train journey from Lincoln to Wymondham with my Mum when I was 4 years old, a locomotive hauled service (probably a 47 from the horn sound) to Peterborough, the long boring wait in the waiting room at Peterborough, sitting behind the driver in a DMU out of Peterborough - can't remember changing at Ely or not - then being lifted out of the train by Grandad at Wymondham.

 

 

Wymondham! yes I have early memories there and Norwich Thorpe. Too  late for Steam but Green and Blue 31's, 47's, 40's and 37's not to mention 03's. 

[TheSignalEngineer]

On 26/02/2020 at 09:13, Welly said:

My parents told me that I was fascinated by trains since I was 6 months old so I could not possibly remember my first sighting of a train!

I used to look after my first grandson on a Friday when he was just about walking and talking. A regular trip was bus to Stockport, train to Piccadilly, visit Ian Allan shop and train back to Marple, sometimes via Guide Bridge changing at Romiley.

He used to amuse the other passengers by identifying train operators and sometimes destinations by TOC livery.

One day in Ian Allan he told the assistant that the Hornby Pacer had the wrong kind of doors for the livery. He was about three at the time.