Where did you start spotting railways

[97406]

2 hours ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

1975.  Skived off games for the afternoon and a school-mate took me to the scenic splendour of Bescot 😎

 

The panoramic view from the passenger seat of my Dad’s car on the M6. The 20s looked really alien when I first saw them as a kid. Especially the ones with headcode boxes.

[Johann Marsbar]

Watching trains - Winwick Junction in the 1960's, which was conveniently just over a mile (as the crow flies) from my Mothers parents house when we went away to stay with them.  You could just about see the line from the front bedroom window. We did venture to Winwick Quay on a few occasions as well.  Never watched trains anywhere round where I lived though, mainly because it all was dieselised the year I was born!

My first train numbers were written down at Winwick in 1974 ......though I'd love to know what I saw and didn't write down prior to that........

[Nearholmer]

3 hours ago, KeithHC said:

was allowed with my mate to go to Salfords station to go spotting

Some of my many cousins lived in a house the back of which overlooked the line just north of Salfords, where the Quarry Line converges with the old route via Redhill, and that was definitely a hood train/watching location. I was rather envious of the fact that one had both a bedroom window overlooking the line, and a layout in the same room!

[younGGuns7]

I lived in Wingerworth just outside Chesterfield and used to cycle to the old site of Clay Cross station. Such a great variety of traction back in 1971. I used to get a rail rover pass so Donny/York/Newark one way Crewe the other way. My Grand parents lived in Pontypool so I used to go down for summer holidays and again a WR rail rover used to take me to Exeter and Reading etc. Whilst watching Newport County @ Somerton Park I heard and saw my first Western - love at first sound hooked to the WR ever since hence my model railway is called Somerton Park 👍 I still live in near the MML and often pass the old Clay X station bridge 

[Chris116]

In 1957 just before my third birthday we moved into the only house my parents ever owned! They both died in old age and I sold it a year after my father's death. At the bottom of the garden was the District line just south of Southfields station. That line had and still has National Rail trains as well as the Underground service. My first night soon after bedtime I was found with my nose against the bedroom window as a steam hauled freight train went past. I was hooked from that moment on trains. My father was a sports fan and we went everywhere by train to watch such sports as football, rugby, speedway, stock cars, cricket and ice hockey. My grand parents lived in Manchester and we visited them at least twice a year for a few days which meant a nice journey outside the day trips we did almost every weekend. In 1971, 72 and 73 I used an All-line Rover and covered most of the railways that were open at that time. Still love trains and regularly spend time on heritage lines as well day trips for fun around the country.

[Rugd1022]

21 hours ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

1975.  Skived off games for the afternoon and a school-mate took me to the scenic splendour of Bescot 😎

 

I was there last night, it looks more scenic in the dark!

 

I started spotting 'proper' in 1971, in the summer an older cousin gave me his 1969 and 1970 locoshed books and I was hooked, then a visit to Old Oak with my grandad in September '71 sealed my fate.

[franciswilliamwebb]

1 minute ago, Rugd1022 said:

I was there last night, it looks more scenic in the dark!

The thing I remember most is the stench of the adjacent sewage works back then.

 

The romance of the iron road - every time I f*rt I think of Bescot 😉

[KeithHC]

17 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Some of my many cousins lived in a house the back of which overlooked the line just north of Salfords, where the Quarry Line converges with the old route via Redhill, and that was definitely a hood train/watching location. I was rather envious of the fact that one had both a bedroom window overlooking the line, and a layout in the same room!

I lived just down the road from the footpath crossing north of Salfords station. To get to thecrossing you had to climb a flight of steps andante the top there was not a platform to stand onto see if the coast was clear. In away it made sure yourespected the railway especially when the CIG/BIGs were introduced as they where permitted to do 90mph. Now elf and safely has come into play and the crossing is now footbridge.

 

Keith

[Will Crompton]

I think it's genetic as one of my uncles and my dad used to go spotting around Stoke-on-Trent where my mum and dad are from. My dad used to claim him and his mates once had a 'ride' in the revolving tender of an LMS garratt parked in a country siding near where they lived. For a time we lived in Stoke when I was a toddler and my Grandad used to take me on a 'speed whiskered' green DMU from Meir Station to Stoke-on-trent station to watch trains. This would have been circa 1961/2 and it's funny how some of the memories are very vivid i.e. the steps down to the platform on (the now closed) Meir station and being allowed onto the footplate of an engine at Stoke courtesy of a friendly crew. I also remember Stoke MPD from later visits as the two sets of Grandparents lived at opposite ends of the Stoke er..erm...mega-city and the bus between went past the MPD. As it was above road level you would get a glimpse of filthy black engines looming above you, I was always entranced by this as being a nipper they seemed huge. As this was the mid 60s (shed closed in 1967) I think they would have been Black 5s, 8Fs and standard types. I can also remember the coaling stage. We moved to SW London circa 62/3 and I can remember Bulleid pacifics and and a Q1. I used to play in a 'rec' next to the SW main line and vividly remember the pacifics rushing past and then later maroon warships (I always thought Warships looked good in this colour). Circa 1971 me and some mates decided to take up trainspotting. Our first location was the footbridge just south of Wimbledon Station where we would go after school. There was a good view of Wimbledon (south) goods yard from their as well. Lots of EMU's of course which we generally found a bit dull* but during an hour one would get BRCW's (33s or 'Cromptons' as I believe young people call them) on Exeter, Bournemouth and Weymouth trains, BRCWs and Electro-diesels (73, 74s) on parcel trains plus there was often a 73 shunting the yard. We caught the tail end of Warships on Exeter trains. I think I remember seeing 74s on passenger trains. (I rather miss 74s. I'll get me coat.)

 

Our first 'excursion' was to Clapham Junction one Saturday Morning. As luck would have it engineering diversions were in place so our train to Clapham went from Wimbledon via the District Line through East Putney and joined the Barnes/Richmond lines. Imagine our excitement as we were slowly coming down the incline and could see a freight train being held to let us pass double headed by a Brush 4 and a Peak. Talk about exotic! Eventually we had a regular London itenary on a Saturday - Paddington lots of Westerns hoorah!, Bakerloo to Willesden, ask nicely at shed office to go round Willesden TMD, over the hill to Old Oak Common, walk in bold as brass, never challenged, cop everything there, sandwiches on the carriage siding buffer stops by the main line, then Euston, St Pancras and best of all Kings Cross, Deltics, 40s, Peaks, Brush 4s, A1A's etc etc etc. We also did long distance trips - I can remember Newcastle, Swindon, Doncaster, Derby, Toton, Tinsley, Glasgow, Immingham and Cardiff (where we were unceremoniously turfed out of Canton before we had hardly set foot in the place). Did Barry scrapyard a couple times as well. Then interest faded for the usual reasons until one day commuting home from work from Denmark Hill in the early 21st century I saw a 37 in EWS red (one of the few decent privatisation liveries) pass through with a rake of varied wagons. 'There's lovely' I thought and I was hooked again.

 

*What I wouldn't give to hear and smell the insides of a 4-Sub as it ticks over now though. Blub!

Edited February 12 by Will Crompton
typos

[Mallard60022]

By information but not knowingly: Devonport Junction Plymouth 1948, age 1.

Actually as a Spotter. Devonport Kings Road BR SR, September 1958, Footbridge over Goods Yard (Plymouth). On starting Sec School. Closely followed by North Road Station and nearby on Walls and 83D Laira Shed; ooooh that was a bit scary at first!

Loads of boys from most Schools, were Spotters back then; until Girls became interesting!

P

[tetsudofan]

Back in 1955 started watching trains from my grandfathers bedroom window, from one of these windows overlooking the approach to Lowestoft Central (as it was then):

 

 

Granddad was a fitter at Lowestoft Shed (32C) and we (my younger brother and me) always spent our summer holidays with Dad's parents and spent quite a lot of time when we were not on the beach up in the bedroom watching trains arriving and departing.

 

One day we were taken to the shed to get really close to what was on the shed. In a way Granddad got me into trouble when I got back to school in South East London. One of the teachers asked us what we had been doing during the holidays and I described my visit to the shed telling them that Granddad had explained to me how the "vacum" brake worked. The teacher quickly corrected me saying it was the "vacuum" brake. No I said, it was the "vacum" and an argument followed.....

 

It's interesting that when my brother was born I had been despatched to the grandparents for six months  and when I returned home I had gained a new brother and bit of a Suffolk accent but it did not last that long.

 

Watching the trains from the bedroom was what started the interest in trains and has continued to this day.

 

Keith

 

PS: back in 1955 you could easily see the trains from ground level, where the trees are now used to be allotments.....

 

[vulcan product fan]

22 hours ago, younGGuns7 said:

I lived in Wingerworth just outside Chesterfield and used to cycle to the old site of Clay Cross station. Such a great variety of traction back in 1971. I used to get a rail rover pass so Donny/York/Newark one way Crewe the other way. My Grand parents lived in Pontypool so I used to go down for summer holidays and again a WR rail rover used to take me to Exeter and Reading etc. Whilst watching Newport County @ Somerton Park I heard and saw my first Western - love at first sound hooked to the WR ever since hence my model railway is called Somerton Park 👍 I still live in near the MML and often pass the old Clay X station bridge 

I lived in Grassmoor not to far from Clay cross my Bedroom window Faced the MML so could see train all day until dark my dad had an interest in Railways so would walk to the field between Avenue sidings and the MML so we could watch the coal trains going onto the Plant and still watch train pass on the mainline . My Secondary school was Deincourt in North Wingfield which was up the incline from the site of Clay cross Station and from School I could watch trains from the classrooms . Most Saturdays my dad took me out spotting around the UK via Cheap tickets with a Family Railcard as children could travel anywhere on the network for only a £1 . What great memories .

[Foulounoux]

We were very fortunate 

Richard Hale School in Hertford and Halerail

A geography teacher who also happened to be a rail photographer  one AEYoung   (I note many of his photos on disused station site)

End of term days where school trips were arranged including rail excursions Blackpool York etc ,  trips to London terminii and arranged trips to Finsbury Park and Old Oak Common 

 

And managed to get  connections to Sir Peter Parker and Bert Gemmell (chief passenger manager ER and creator of the sidings hotel) which enabled some pupils to get tickets for the inaugural  Silver Jubilee in 1977

 

Plus for me dad working in London and having to go into the office on Saturdays meant trips to London in Cravens sat of course behind the driver

 

 

 

[lmsforever]

I meant to add the following when I started this thread ,the flat I lived in in Newbury Park Essex for a few  years backed onto the remains of the GER branch which went to Ilford after coming from Epping .Further up the road a friends garden shed backed over where Central Line tubes went into the tunnell , it was a long way down and we dropped conkers on them we were very young!  Incedently durring the second world war several times German figters and bombers followed the railway firing as they passed aiming to  drop bombs on Plessey ,s works where many new weapons came from my dad worked in a special weapons dept and was a fireman at night.Newbury Park station was a very advanced building it was a very large arch construction and was a wind tunnel  plus a funnel for rain.I had my first train ride on the Central line to Stratford  very exciting.

[Matt37268]

On 11/02/2024 at 13:47, stewartingram said:

GE also. As a pre-teen we lived in the Isle of Ely, so trips in the car usually meant a wait at LC gates, or maybe a pause alongside the ECML at somewhere like Offord. And Saturday days out on the 137 bus to Cambridge, ending up with a trip to the station to watch the trains.

Age 10, we moved to Cambridge, near Chesterton Junction. My home base, which then expanded, as High School at 11 saw me at the Hills Road school, with daily lunchtime visits to the Cattle Market (Cambridge South box area). And the school had a trinspotting club, with a coach trip to London soon after I joined. All the London sheds, and my firs tlone escapade! Then on it expanded.

 

 

On 11/02/2024 at 13:52, franciswilliamwebb said:

1975.  Skived off games for the afternoon and a school-mate took me to the scenic splendour of Bescot 😎

As a yoof growing up in the Midlands in the late 80’s early 90’s Bescot and Saltley were locations my Dad would take myself and my brother on a Sunday afternoon. 
 

@stewartingram I’m quoting your post because I now have to cycle through Chesterton Junction on my way into work which is next to Coldhams Lane Carriage Sidings 😀 

I still try and keep and eye and ear out for anything interesting. 
During a conversation with my bosses when 50008 came past a few years ago was rather interesting (How do you know that one’s named ‘Thunderer’?) 😜

[Steve O.]

Deltics, 47s, then HSTs at Chester-le-Street, mid 1970s, from grandparents' house in (appropriately) Station View. You could hear them coming and I'd rush out to see the trains sweep over the viaduct at what seemed like 1,000 miles per hour. My grandparents didn't even register them.

We actually lived closer to the Consett line but too infrequent and far to hear and run out... did catch / dodge the 37s (and occasional 25?) while looking for iron ore pebbles on the line though. My Dad would take me to Gateshead shed, and to Marley Hill ('early Tanfield') when there was the big hole between the pit and the turntable area, got me into steam too.

 

Sharing one from @Trev52A (bottom photo, over the viaduct).

 

[ess1uk]

Kettering.

first from my great Gran's window that had a view of the MML with peaks hauling coaches.

then when i started secondary school in 1982  i would go down to the station at lunch times.

there were often trains on test from Derby running in between the morning and evening rush and there was still a signal box then but mostly HSTs by then and if you stayed long enough you saw the same few in both directions.

school holidays meant day trips on my own to all the London terminus to watch 50s, 86s, 87s etc

and visits to Grandparents in the New Forest where i'd take the train to Eastleigh and Salisbury, Westbury and even Exeter on my own for the day.

[Halvarras]

Truro, Cornwall, summer of '66 - introduced to the real railway by a school friend (who went on to work at the ORR). The same year another friend down the road got me interested in the model side - I'd been building Airfix kits for years, mostly aircraft - now I could create stuff with a purpose!I

 

Truro station in 1966 was of course all diesel-hydraulics - green and maroon with blue just around the corner - with what would become a Class 08 shunting the yard (D3509 may have been my first official cop) and a DMU working the Falmouth branch (usually Swindon Cross-country with headcode panels). My 1967 IA combo shows I saw all five D600 Warships but alas I only have scant memories, D600 in blue passing Penwithers Junction on an up freight being the clearest. Same with D6301 with disc headcodes - underlined but no recollection now. I probably saw these locos and a lot more besides during a week's Cornish Railrover that first summer but I have no written records for that year (if I ever get a time machine re-running that week would be a priority!) My 1966 Tri-ang catalogue had alerted me to the good looks of the Hymek but I wouldn't see one in Cornwall until August the following year when D7029 heading the down 'Cornish Riviera' caught me by surprise at Carn Brea. Many years later I'd discover that they'd been a fairly regular sight in Cornwall during 1964/5 as Laira had a small allocation, but for some reason 1966, for me at least, had been a Hymek-free zone and I've never seen evidence contradicting this. Autumn 1967 had seen D7029/88 make repeated appearances (plus one from D7017), I believe covering for the loan of D601/2/4 to South Wales, but Hymeks would become rare visitors to Truro after that, just one or two a year. Meanwhile my combo was getting heavily scored on the Warship, Western and NBL Type 2 pages....... relief arrived one afternoon that same autumn in the form of D1677 'Thor', followed a couple of weeks later by D1640 - Brush Type 4s became highly sought after and before 1968 was over we'd had some 'for'ners' from the LMR and even the odd ER example - real exotica in the far South West those were, after all they'd had to survive loco changes at Bristol and Plymouth! The down 'Cornishman' on a Friday seemed a good bet for a Brush, although WR examples were still most likely. It was the less likely ones which got everyone excited.....!

 

I have a few childhood memories of steam but Cornwall had been fully dieselized by the time I got seriously interested. In retrospect I realised that, as I inevitably began to travel further afield, the surviving steam traction was receding at a similar rate, and I missed steam at both Exeter and in the Midlands by around 15 months. As I look back now on the fascinating railways I knew and loved, which operationally had far more in common with the steam age than do the last four decades, I get an idea of how steam fans must have felt after 11th August 1968 - and especially that feeling of emptiness which hit me on 27th February 1977.......

 

I'd better stop here, I can feel meself gettin' all emotional now 🤪!

[jamie92208]

On 12/02/2024 at 18:54, vulcan product fan said:

I lived in Grassmoor not to far from Clay cross my Bedroom window Faced the MML so could see train all day until dark my dad had an interest in Railways so would walk to the field between Avenue sidings and the MML so we could watch the coal trains going onto the Plant and still watch train pass on the mainline . My Secondary school was Deincourt in North Wingfield which was up the incline from the site of Clay cross Station and from School I could watch trains from the classrooms . Most Saturdays my dad took me out spotting around the UK via Cheap tickets with a Family Railcard as children could travel anywhere on the network for only a £1 . What great memories .

Interesting that Chesterfield has cropped up.  I was born in Carlisle and was taken to the side of The WCMLnrar the castle in my pram and from my father's trainspotting  diary I know that I heard Stanier Pacifics aged 3 months.  We moved to Chesterfield when I was 9 months and my first railway memory is of seeing the last Garratt across a field as my mum and I walked along the A61 to pick my brother up from school.  Railways were always there and when I was 6 we moved to Giggleswick with a view of 2 miles of the Settle and Carlisle line from our kitchen Window. I think that I started spotting  aged about 10 in 62/63. My first combine dates from then. 

 

Jamie

[spenc]

At Wychnor junction on the NE/SW line between Derby and Birmingham also the line to Lichfield from there worked on a farm there, fields each side railway from 1975 great spotting days.worst day was when a lot of pigs escaped overnight and wondered on the line during the early morning there was jointed pork everywhere it looked like a war zone.

[Iron Horse]

I was born in 67 in Oxford, sometime in the early 70's (definitely before 76) my Dad took me to the Didcot Railway Centre and in his words "There were all the lovely steam engines and all Adrian did was watch the dirty diesels on the avoiding line to Oxford". I was hooked and my Dad in fairness took me spotting to Oxford, Radley and Didcot pretty frequently especially on summer evenings. Holidays in Teignmouth started in 76, depot trips to London with my Dad in the late 70's/early 80's and then I was off all over bashing 😎

[Rivercider]

On 12/02/2024 at 11:13, franciswilliamwebb said:

The thing I remember most is the stench of the adjacent sewage works back then.

 

The romance of the iron road - every time I f*rt I think of Bescot 😉

A BR clerical  colleague of mine ( a former Driver), made a quiet comment to himself whenever certain railway locations were mentioned, whenever Bescot was spoken about he would quietly mutter sh*t farm!

 

cheers 

[Rivercider]

We lived near the SR line between Salisbury and Exeter, quite near Exmouth Junction, and my dad took me round there a few times towards the end of steam. My first spotting trips were visits to Exeter St Davids stabling point on Sunday lunchtimes in 1970/71.

We also had a week in a caravan at Dawlish Warren close to the line in one of those summers when I took numbers of passing trains. My first Ian Allan spotting book was the one with the maroon Warship passing Sydney Gardens Bath on the cover, I saw lots of Warships at Exeter.

 

cheers   

[Ramrig]

I started watching trains in around 1968/69, at my grandmothers cottage, close to Stenson Junction. Seeing the coal trains being hauled by green diesel’s, with the odd blue one thrown in, on their way to Willington Power Station. From what I can remember they were loose coupled wagons and you watch the domino type effect as they restarted from the signal after the couplings had gone slack. Later on it was over to a farmers crossing on the main Derby to Birmingham line, here we would see the expresses on NE/SW as well as the Derby to Crewe trains. This crossing is close to where the A50 (Derby Southern Bypass) now crosses the line. Happy days.

[Mark Forrest]

My earliest memory of going somewhere specifically to watch/spot trains was a trip to Wolverhampton station on a Saturday with my Dad and brother.  I still have the Locoshed book bought at the time which was the Winter 83/84 edition so I'd have been about 8 years old.  If I remember rightly we were there to see the pair of class 25s take forward a train to (I assume) Aberystwyth.  Possibly the same year, we had a day out at Crewe during the school summer holidays and remember being amazed at how busy it was with loco changes and movement on/off the depot.  We saw D200 which think had only recently returned to traffic in green livery at the time.