When spotting which trains made you think “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

[Artless Bodger]

Not really given to going spotting, except a couple of trips to London to do the main termini with a school friend, so Deltics at Kings Cross, Westerns at Paddington. Living in Maidstone it was otherwise a diet of emus in green or blue.

 

Early sightings that stick with me were:

 

A family wedding reception in Ilford, the venue overlooked the railway, strange to see trains like at home but powered by overhead wires.

 

First trip to Margate by train (we'd used the M&D coach before - cheaper, until I got travel sick) and seeing Maunsell and Wainwright at Ashford (check the Observers book when we got back home).

 

A holiday at Bracklesham Bay holiday camp, we went to Portsmouth one day for the Victory, waiting for the train back to Chichester at Portsmouth and Southsea HL a dark green dmu came through on a service, I recall the racket the exhausts up the end of the carriages made compared to our quiet emus. Next birthday I got the Triang Met Cam dmu (rather than the Triang emu - looked too old fashioned). (Some years later, a holiday in Hastings introduced me to the much nicer sound of a Hastings unit, or two).

 

A holiday in Weymouth area, 1968 I think, seeing a maroon warship in the sidings at Waterloo, in my ignorance I thought it must be a Midland region loco. Later on the return from holiday, saw a blue one at Basingstoke (Greyhound iirc but I wouldn't put money on it). 

 

Later in life, returning from work in Maidenhead one misty evening, walking from platform 6 at Reading, saw ahead along 8 a class 58, which departed westwards as I approached, so only really saw the end, they were new at the time and I only knew about them from magazines. Didn't see any more 58s until the Fertis (?) ones parked at OOC.

 

Seeing the APT at Carlisle on my first trip to Scotland.

 

Discovering thumpers still lived (just) in NI when my wife got a job over there. We could hear them across Belfast Loch sometimes on services to Larne.

[Will Crompton]

6 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

For me it was the exact opposite; going from the Midlands to 3rd rail territory!! I had no idea what the various EMUs were, but they had numbers on them, so we spotted them!! Only the set numbers on the ends, though, not individual coach numbers. Spotting coaches, and even worse, wagons, was for the Extremely Sad who had nothing better to do!!!

 

You're right about the variety in the 70s, though. Yes everything (almost) was Banger Blue, but it was still very Regional, so you had to travel about to see different loco classes, not like today where the same few classes just wear different colours.

The BR Blue Era was a unique time - of little interest to the previous generation still mourning the end of steam - "diesels are just boxes on wheels", and of little interest to the following generations who grew up with the variety of liveries fromSectorisation to Privatisation - "how boring with everything just one colour". You have to have been there to understand the attraction.

I still contend - and always will - that a clean set of blue/grey coaches, with an ex-works blue loco on the point - was as smart a railway livery as ever there was.

We only did set numbers on SR EMU's in the naive belief that the the units were immutable. We always found recording DMU's a bit of a faff as you had to do the coach numbers, so if passing a location at speed they were usually ignored in favour of locos. We were a little suspicious of anyone recording non-DMU coach numbers, never saw anyone doing wagon numbers*. We did note that a tiny minority recorded London Underground stock. If we saw bus spotters we got out garlic and crucifixes.

 

Looking at the replies (and thank you everyone who has replied to my addled musing) has reminded me of other locos we found exotic. 44's, I can still remember the excitement at copping no 1 at Toton or thereabouts. 26s and 27s on our one and only trip to Scotland circa 1973. We called 33s BRCW's so these we called Scottish BRCW's. Lines of withdrawn Clayton's at Glasgow works were strange. 76s not only were exotic but had a pleasingly archaic look. Funnily enough as we rarely ventured to Liverpool Street and Stratford so 37s were a bit unfamiliar, I think we saw more on trips to Wales than East London. South of the river we rarely went east of Clapham Junction so 71's were unfamiliar compared to 74s. I think I only ever copped one. Also PWM shunters and the funny little thing at Reading Signal Works before they got the 06.

 

*Having developed an interest in wagons in my declining years I'm glad people did though.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

45 minutes ago, Will Crompton said:

If we saw bus spotters we got out garlic and crucifixes.

We didn't bite 😀

 

In the mid to late 70s and living in the London Country/London Transport area, I generally found buses more interesting. It was clear that an era was coming to an end, of AEC Regals and Regents, and even Routemasters were losing their position. Most of the new buses lacked character and some were downright awful (AEC Merlins deserving particular odium), but there was still plenty of variety and interest. On the railways, everything seemed pretty static. HSTs were expanding their empire and would eventually displace the Deltics, but there was no sense of loco-hauled trains being displaced more widely, and first generation DMUs (generally unloved) were still the mainstay of most local and less well used services. Even the closure of Woodhead looked to be some time in the future.

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, Artless Bodger said:

...  Living in Maidstone ... Didn't see any more 58s until the Fertis (?) ones parked at OOC. ...

This would've surprised you as much as it did me !

 

Ashford : 25/7/98 ............................... love that dogleg !

 

[caradoc]

August 1972, travelled with a friend (both of us just short of 13 years old) on a special BR 75p ticket from Oxford to Manchester, and then by bus (for some reason, rather than train) to visit Reddish Depot. Seeing Class 76s for the first time is a never to be forgotten memory. I also recall vividly, for some reason, on the same day passing a Class 20-hauled Engineers train put into the long-gone Down Loop at Fosse Road for our train to pass. 

 

 

 

[Will Crompton]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

We didn't bite 😀

 

In the mid to late 70s and living in the London Country/London Transport area, I generally found buses more interesting. It was clear that an era was coming to an end, of AEC Regals and Regents, and even Routemasters were losing their position. Most of the new buses lacked character and some were downright awful (AEC Merlins deserving particular odium), but there was still plenty of variety and interest. On the railways, everything seemed pretty static. HSTs were expanding their empire and would eventually displace the Deltics, but there was no sense of loco-hauled trains being displaced more widely, and first generation DMUs (generally unloved) were still the mainstay of most local and less well used services. Even the closure of Woodhead looked to be some time in the future.

To be fair one of my younger brothers was on bus spotting duties. I remember him and his mates were chasing after a rapidly disappearing single decker type used by London Transport. Funnily enough growing up in London, I found buses in Stoke-on-Trent where my family hailed from, very exotic as a nipper in the 60s. Routemastery types with doors and buses with doors at the front!!! I had two uncles who worked for Potteries Motor Traction as well.

[david.hill64]

I wrote earlier about the joys for a Gloucester lad of seeing the Scots specials - what were later to be class 06 and 17 plus the different DMU's - but if I think about it there were earlier delights.

 

A trip to Bristol in 1966 showed me warships for the first time, including the original D600 series, and Falcon. Although Gloucester regularly saw Westerns on the London trains and Hymeks on a variety of things, Warships at that time were rare. The regular diesel classes were only Brush type 4 (47) and Peaks (45 and 46) with an occasional 25, 27 and 37.

 

That same year a trip to Birmingham brought me my first Brush type 2 (31) on a Norwich to Birmingham service and my first EEtype 1 (20) outside Bescot yard and my first EEtype 4 (40) on the Euston trains.

 

Later that year a trip to Derby works yielded all sorts of goodies: the original main line diesels (10000/1 and 10201/2/3) on the scrap line plus a variety of small shunters in the D29xx series and strange shunters that were a bit like the standard 08 but with jackshadt drives! Real wonders.

[Artless Bodger]

On buses, two things stick in the memory; being mystified by the upstairs layout on a low bridge type, I think they were used normally on the 3 to Sittingbourne and Faversham, this was off route as we had it on a 33 to Tunbridge Wells. And on holiday in Margate, the lovely dark red East Kent double deckers with power operated sliding doors, occasionally got them in Maidstone on the 10 from Folkestone. 

 

Generally trips to see relatives in Kent was by bus as few lived near stations.

[Artless Bodger]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

This would've surprised you as much as it did me !

 

Ashford : 25/7/98 ............................... love that dogleg !

 

Trying to place that view, is it on the line from Maidstone, approaching the junction, the 58 in the original LCDR Ashford station area? Having behind the photographer the army depot, that always had what looked like a Centurion hull parked close to the railway line, and having just passed an interesting looking metal door built into the side of the cutting? The CEP(?) in the distance being on the SER main line to Tonbridge (or Chart Leacon depot)?

[Wickham Green too]

Location spot on ! .......... blowing the original up, it looks like you were part right about a CEP - it's a DEMU augmented with a CEP trailer and, judging by the size of the orange splodge nameplate, it's probably 207.202 " Brighton Royal Pavilion".

Oh - the 58 was 003 by the way.

[TheSignalEngineer]

22 hours ago, PhilH said:

a trip on the train to London to trainspot...nb on our own, no adults, aged barely 12.

At 12 we went travelling around London, Manchester and Liverpool shed bunking. First bus into Birmingham on Sunday morning and back in time for the last bus home at 10.30pm.

 

The following year the school cadet force camp was right next to Pirbright Junction. No neef for the bugler to wake you in the morning. One of the last LSWR 700 Class in service used to pull up about 50 yards from our tent with a trip consisting mainly of coal empties. I spent one night as part of the camp guard, patrolling the railway side boundary from 11pm when a big liner had docked at Southampton. Then on the last evening, it was a Friday in the August holiday, 60 steam hauled trains between the evening meal and lights out. Plenty of cops from Southern sheds. It seemed that anything able to boil water was pressed into service.

Edited February 23 by TheSignalEngineer

[TheSignalEngineer]

2 hours ago, david.hill64 said:

That same year a trip to Birmingham brought me my first Brush type 2 (31) on a Norwich to Birmingham service

Used to hang around for that when I was working in the Saltley area. I usually came through on its way back to Norwich when I was waiting for a train into New Street.

[Nearholmer]

I grew up in Sussex, in DEMU-land, but my maternal grandparents’ nearest station was Woking, and we also had family in the Redhill, Hayling and Portsmouth areas, and went to the London museums and the zoo quite often, so I got an early  grounding in typically southern things, steam, diesel and electric, plus LT (including seeing a steam loco at Baker Street).
 

My first “exotics” weren’t other BR things, they were SNCF. Unfortunately I missed SNCF steam by a whisker, but on a week-long school trip when I was 11yo, I got to see oodles of very interesting diesels, mostly 66000, 67000 and 68000 I think, plus lots of small shunters, some looking very antiquated. From a north of England perspective, it’s possibly counterintuitive, but northern France was both nearer, and quicker to get to, than much of England.

Edited February 22 by Nearholmer

[SouthernBlue80s]

I spotted from 1980 until 1990.

Being kent based, then lots of trips to Reading and from 1985 based in Bristol...

 

...Class 20s and high number large logo class 56s were the exotic alien machines. So Bescot holding sidings always felt like the edge of a new mysterious 'northern' class 20 world.

 

Weirdly I saw a pair of 20s at Reading, that was a real pinch myself moment.

[birdseyecircus]

I live in Hull and had only just started spotting in the early 80s. 

Whilst on a  coach trip to Wembley we were suddenly alongside the overhead wires on the M1 when 87034 William Shakespeare shot passed the window!  Wow! Completely different from the Hull scene.

 

Paul

[Wickham Green too]

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

... Unfortunately I missed SNCF steam by a whisker, ...

One of life's regrets is declining a school exchange visit to Limoges where, I was assured, steam was still active.

[br2975]

Being from South Wales, and a diet of then 12 year old Derby Suburban DMUs ( Cl.116 for the younger element ) finding myself, one day in May 1970, travelling back and forth twixt Eastbourne and Brighton on 'antiquated'  (i) 2-BIL (ii) 2-HAL, and (iii) 4-COR units certainly broadened my horizons, to the ride, noises, accomodation and general ambience.

.

[Nearholmer]

29 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

One of life's regrets is declining a school exchange visit to Limoges where, I was assured, steam was still active.

I’m fairly certain that when I first went (1969 I think), steam was still in use on some lines, but the lines just across the channel seemed to have been fully dieselised from what I could see.

 

 

Edited February 23 by Nearholmer

[john new]

Summer of 1968 (1) realising on a post O-levels school trip that German trains ran the opposite way round and (2) on the same trip coming back being behind an o/h electric but being steam banked out of Aachen. Looking back that must have been the last time I was on a (partially) steam hauled service train. Local SR steam had gone the year before and I didn’t get up to the NW for riding the last steam flings up there.

[Pendle Forest]

Preston was our hub spotting station in the mid-80s to early 90s.  Standard fair were 20s,25,31s,37s,47s for diesels and 81s,85s,86s,87s for electrics.  A motley array of 101s,104s and 108s were still trundling around... the 104s mostly in plain rail blue.  Then along came the pacers and sprinters. 

 

However a trip to Carlisle using a Network North West Railrover uncovered these mysterious scottie dog emblazoned 26s which we all thought very exotic.  A 27 was like hens teeth but was guaranteed to be captured on film. 

 

The rarest of rare events, which would usually involve charging over the footbridge to the platform it was arriving in, was a 47/7 that had somehow escaped the push-pull circuit.  These were almost always removed at Carlise to be replaced by a 47/4 from the north west allocation... it was well known that furious exchanges would take place with the traffic office at Preston if they got that far south with demands they were returned ASAP. 

 

Going towards the south west everything up to Brum was pretty much the same but hitting Bristol, going on holiday, would see us pinned to the windows ad we passed Bath Road in the hope of at least one 50. 

 

The third rails emus were always a catch, particularly with there odd set numbers on the front.  I never did quite get used to the 4 digit set numbers. And the 3 letter codes were baffling. 

[Oldddudders]

22 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

Was the branch still there? I think they tested Thumpers on that at one point.

It was - I clearly heard a steam loco blowing off, but sadly was not encouraged to go and see the station at all. Dr Hitchcock, with whom we were staying, had been one of my mother's schoolteachers, so I was not in young company. 

[Andy Kirkham]

I began my spotting career in Bristol and there was an alien world only a few miles away. Severn Tunnel Junction was a frontier point beyond which reigned the hordes of Class 37s, almost never seen in Bristol. Just a couple of miles further came the sight of Llanwern steelworks, resembling a portal into Hades. Then came Newport where you could stand on the platforms and watch the unending succession of coal and ore trains passing through. Further on was the lure of Woodham's at Barry, and the mysterious labyrinth of the Valleys where, it was rumoured, steam locos were still to be seen at work.

Edited February 23 by Andy Kirkham

[TheSignalEngineer]

14 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Unfortunately I missed SNCF steam by a whisker,

I managed to catch a couple on a day trip over when we were staying in Folkestone in 1964. Next time there was 1979 right down from Calais to Spain. All electric and diesel then. Highlight was being on a holiday relief train from Cebere to Paris. Started diesel but changed (at Narbonne?) to an electric. in the early morning through Paris suburbs it looked a bit strange  Unfortunately being with a tour party we couldn't hang around for pictures as the courier was taking us to his reguar cafe for breakfast but as we got to the end of the platform we were greeted by the sight of a gereatric looking centre cab electric loco rthat had brought us in.

[jamie92208]

On 23/02/2024 at 00:08, Nearholmer said:

I grew up in Sussex, in DEMU-land, but my maternal grandparents’ nearest station was Woking, and we also had family in the Redhill, Hayling and Portsmouth areas, and went to the London museums and the zoo quite often, so I got an early  grounding in typically southern things, steam, diesel and electric, plus LT (including seeing a steam loco at Baker Street).
 

My first “exotics” weren’t other BR things, they were SNCF. Unfortunately I missed SNCF steam by a whisker, but on a week-long school trip when I was 11yo, I got to see oodles of very interesting diesels, mostly 66000, 67000 and 68000 I think, plus lots of small shunters, some looking very antiquated. From a north of England perspective, it’s possibly counterintuitive, but northern France was both nearer, and quicker to get to, than much of England.

Some 67000's are still around  I saw two yesterday one running light engine.  However to get back to the OP I can't remember a real light bulb moment in the UK,however when I took my first trip to the US in 1978 I knew that I really was in the western USA when I saw my first loco with Santa Fe written on it in big letters.  It got even better when I saw my first Union Pacific ones. 

 

Jamie

Edited February 24 by jamie92208

[Wickham Green too]

5 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

... a geriatric looking centre cab electric loco that had brought us in.

A 'Monocabine', monsieur ...... like zis : - 

... or like zat, peut etre ?                            ( Thionville, 22/9/90 )