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

[F-UnitMad]

18 hours ago, pH said:

We’re regularly getting KCS engines here in Canada now with the CPR - KCS merger. (Still haven’t seen an engine in the merger colour scheme yet.)

Beat me to it - I had a feeling KCS engines would now be ranging far & wide, & over the Border!! ☝️👍

[pH]

2 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Beat me to it - I had a feeling KCS engines would now be ranging far & wide, & over the Border!! ☝️👍

Far, wide and regular but not very plentiful yet. CPR units have been far, wide and regular on non-CPR lines south of the border for many years, often as leaders - in general, Canadian engines have more crew facilities than US engines. For example, in 2013 I saw a CPR engine as the leader of three on a BNSF freight on the transcontinental through Flagstaff, Arizona.

[mac1960]

On 23/02/2024 at 14:12, TheSignalEngineer said:

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.

I remember seeing a 141R near Perpignan in around 1967. We were heading from Spain to the airport to catch a Channel Airways Viscount to Southend. I am pretty sure an Oil fired one. Incidentally the inbound flight made 5 approaches before landing on a clear night. Fire engines were out and about . First passenger threw up on the tarmac after disembarking! 
 

We flew back with the same crew but no issues.
 

My last European Steam was two DB Class 50 on an Iron Ore train in the Rhine valley I think in 1974 . I witnessed some stationary ones in the Ruhr on a later  trip around 1975, smoking but not moving when we passed on the autobahn from Venlo.

 

Edited February 29 by mac1960

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, mac1960 said:

I remember seeing a 141R near Perpignan in around 1967. We were heading from Spain to the airport to catch a Channel Airways Viscount to Southend. I am pretty sure an Oil fired one. Incidentally the inbound flight made 5 approaches before landing on a clear night. Fire engines were out and about . First passenger threw up on the tarmac after disembarking! 

We went out from Folkestone on a flat calm morning. This beast was shunting when we disembarked.

Who left that car there? by Charles Eric Steele, on Flickr. When we got back to the harbour in the afternoon a train to Paris hauled by 231E27 was waiting to leave. 

Mid channel it was thick fog, then approaching Folkestone we hit a south westerly gale and it took us 40 minutes to get alongside the quay. I was one of the few who didn't throw up

[Nearholmer]

Does anyone now exactly when steam did finish on services from Calais, Boulogne, and Dieppe? 

[big jim]

On 23/02/2024 at 12:28, Pendle Forest said:

However a trip to Carlisle using a Network North West Railrover uncovered these mysterious scottie dog emblazoned 26s which we all thought very exotic

that was my first thought too, that and orange 156s in the north end bays! 

 

Being in north wales crewe was normally our go to place for spotting with my dad so from there heading south seeing the first red lamp posts south of rugby meant we were in NSE territory and seeing a then new at the time 321 was quite exciting! 
 

career wise though the first time I saw a class 165 turbo in Birmingham in 2005 while passing over the snow hill lines on a road learning loco seemed very strange as I didn’t know they came up to snow hill with chiltern, cue 5 years down the line and I’d be driving them there myself! 
 

Even today it quite exciting for me at times to be passing GWR or LNER or MML trains on various jobs as I’d have never imagined I’d be driving trains in those regions when I started driving 

 

Edited February 29 by big jim

[64F]

Pacers.  An unknown species in Scotland, but common as soon as you crossed the border to Northumberland or Carlisle.  Also class 31s and 56s which were exceptionally rare visitors to Scotland at the time (late '80s).

[jamie92208]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Does anyone now exactly when steam did finish on services from Calais, Boulogne, and Dieppe? 

Certainly I was steam hauled from Calais to Amiens in 1967. Two 14R's which impressed this 14 Yr old.  I have a vague memory that steam finished in either 69 or 70.  One of the last great strongholds was Marseille to Ventimiglia (Vintmille) where it lasted till it was electrified at 25 Kv

 

Jamie

Edited February 29 by jamie92208

[Pendle Forest]

5 hours ago, big jim said:

that was my first thought too, that and orange 156s in the north end bays! 

 

Being in north wales crewe was normally our go to place for spotting with my dad so from there heading south seeing the first red lamp posts south of rugby meant we were in NSE territory and seeing a then new at the time 321 was quite exciting! 
 

career wise though the first time I saw a class 165 turbo in Birmingham in 2005 while passing over the snow hill lines on a road learning loco seemed very strange as I didn’t know they came up to snow hill with chiltern, cue 5 years down the line and I’d be driving them there myself! 
 

Even today it quite exciting for me at times to be passing GWR or LNER or MML trains on various jobs as I’d have never imagined I’d be driving trains in those regions when I started driving 

 

I'd forgotten about the SPT orange 156s.  You'd also get the occasional escaped Tyneside yellow/blue 143 too.

[Pendle Forest]

Wales and the West Country too where all the semaphores suddenly moved in the not normal way 😅

[Artless Bodger]

A school trip to Switzerland at Easter 1970, staying in Fiesch. We travelled by coach but had a couple of short trips on the FO and BVZ and saw the one FO diesel loco. A day trip to Stresa over the Simplon Pass, saw the FO shunting tractor in Brig, a sort of red milk float, outside cranks and with a pantograph on the roof. One steam loco at t alevel crossing in Italy - from later investigation I think it was an inside cylinder 2-6-0 with outside valve gear. Angular brown articulated electric loco  on a freight at Stresa station (the others went on a boat round the Boromean Islands). The old tram terminus beside the FS station.

[96701]

My first railway photo taken at Dawlish before I started spotting:-

 

My second one:- taken at Robertsbridge.

 

Then.......trains from Nelson (Lancs). I know this one is heading for Skipton, but in the opposite direction, armed with a child cheap day return,

 

Manchester Piccadilly, now I am seeing exotic. Tommy and Stentor.

 

 

Edited March 1 by 96701
Wrong location for the BRCW Type 3

[Nearholmer]

When was that Rolvenden photo taken? I don’t think I’ve seen a photo of a Compton on the KESR pre-preservation, and  TBH I thought they were too heavy for it anyway.

[fezza]

Great thread!

 

In some ways it's even weirder when you go somewhere very exotic and see something ridiculously familiar. During my first week in Egypt I took the train to Alexandria ... hauled by a Class 66!  A couple of days earlier I'd been photographing them on a railtour at Rugby.

[number6]

Bit niche this but mine was the curved shape of the roof ends above the corridor connections on a pair of MKII coaches at Paddington. I grew up in Sussex and until then had never seen the like. Everything in the south had MkI ‘square’ ends. I distinctly remember looking at them from an adjacent train under the canopies up the top of the platforms (and probably oblivious to the Western or Warship on the front). 

[96701]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

When was that Rolvenden photo taken? I don’t think I’ve seen a photo of a Compton on the KESR pre-preservation, and  TBH I thought they were too heavy for it anyway.

That's because it was at Robertsbridge! I'll correct my post.

[Nearholmer]

Ah, now, that seems a lot more plausible!
 

I wasted a lot of time trying to work out where at Rolvenden there was a deep-ish cutting, and concluding that the answer is ‘nowhere’.

[Wickham Green too]

... and how could a main line loco have got to Rolvenden back in those days ? - not likely to have been thrown on the back of an Alleleys transporter for a gala !

[Nearholmer]

I have no clear idea when track was lifted (in fact, I have an inkling that some of it never was - my dim recollection is that it was severed, but left in-situ) so when I saw the caption I wondered if there was an outside chance that a Crompton had staggered up there through the undergrowth on a scrap-recovery train at some stage, but I was highly sceptical, hence my question.

 

 

 

Edited March 1 by Nearholmer

[Will Crompton]

4 hours ago, fezza said:

Great thread!

 

In some ways it's even weirder when you go somewhere very exotic and see something ridiculously familiar. During my first week in Egypt I took the train to Alexandria ... hauled by a Class 66!  A couple of days earlier I'd been photographing them on a railtour at Rugby.

Good point. In 2021 I was on a train bound for Munich Hauptbanhof and in a yard nearby saw a pair of HST powercars. I nearly choked on my pretzel!!! It transpired RailAdventure had sent them over for display at a trade show.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

4 hours ago, number6 said:

Bit niche this but mine was the curved shape of the roof ends above the corridor connections on a pair of MKII coaches at Paddington. I grew up in Sussex and until then had never seen the like. Everything in the south had MkI ‘square’ ends. I distinctly remember looking at them from an adjacent train under the canopies up the top of the platforms (and probably oblivious to the Western or Warship on the front). 

Something I'd completely forgotten, because it predated my trainspotting days. Between 1968 and 1976, we went on several family holidays to the West Country. I doubt it is the first one in 1968 (to Hayle) that I'm thinking of, because that would have been in July or August, but in later years we sometimes went away at Easter. On one occasion I distinctly remember the steam from the train heating swirling round the coaches at Paddington. I grew up on the line out of Euston, where everything, including heating, was electric. Visits to family in Kent were all electric too, of course.

 

A vaguer memory from these early holidays is seeing red (maroon) engines - very exotic. Green engines were unusual enough at home, but red was unheard of. Another little snippet of information comes from my grandfather, who accompanied us on some of these holidays. He later recalled that one of the engines that hauled us had a front like a car bonnet - clearly a Warship.

[Artless Bodger]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I have no clear idea when track was lifted (in fact, I have an inkling that some of it never was - my dim recollection is that it was severed, but left in-situ) so when I saw the caption I wondered if there was an outside chance that a Crompton had staggered up there through the undergrowth on a scrap-recovery train at some stage, but I was highly sceptical, hence my question.

 

 

 

I think the GWR railcar was delivered by rail via Robertsbridge because I remember reading that it was loaded on one side with scrap brake blocks to tilt it enough to fit through one of the narrow tunnels. I'm sure it was at Rolvenden when I first went there which was probably 1967 or 1968.

[Nearholmer]

At some date, the line was severed at the A21, and for river/bridge works, I think where the big bridge crosses the Rother, but I’m not certain when, possibly early-70s, and I certainly recall going on a 4W railcar from Bodiam northwards (not sure how far) in the late-70s or early-80s, over original, rather iffy looking, track.

[Wickham Green too]

According to Wakipedia, the BTH diesel "Hauled the last train from Robertsbridge to Bodiam in February 1972 prior to the track being lifted on that section" ..... so a green Crompton could - theoretically - have got through at some time !

[adb968008]

On 29/02/2024 at 14:25, 64F said:

Pacers.  An unknown species in Scotland, but common as soon as you crossed the border to Northumberland or Carlisle.  Also class 31s and 56s which were exceptionally rare visitors to Scotland at the time (late '80s).

Ive seen a couple at inverness.. they even did a turn on the Aberdeen line.

ive a picture of a 142 inside Lochgorm works somewhere.. there was a 141 with it.

Edited March 1 by adb968008