nostalgia
 

Hi, just found this today, thought I'd better title this introduction as I have, because I found this through my membership with Ships Nostalgia........and as my interest with trains is for steam trains only........and the nostalgia that links in with a sometimes seeming 'different' lifetime.
Perhaps that's what happens when you get old, you remember the 'good old days', the 'good old days', are usually the days of one's youth, my younger days were fortunately the days of visually beautiful steam trains, days when me and some mates watched trains at the bottom of Stubley Hollow, the only place to spend the days away from grown ups then, well that's not exactly correct, there were lots of 'other places' around Dronfield Woodhouse.
The smell as the train sped under the small road, not really a tunnel, but the train ran under the road, we would get lost in the steam as it wallowed upwards.

We use to visit relatives in Dronfield, this usually meant I would see at least one train that I hadn't spotted before, and I would have to remember the number for the rest of the time, until I could record it in my Ian Allan trainspotters book for our region, always the soft cover, there was the same in hardback and I believe that cost 10s and 6p, a lot of money in those days, anyway it was 'the thing' to have the soft back 'scruffy, wrinkled', book, it showed you was a regular spotter, didn't like people that pretended, serious business it was.

Then when I left school I joined the Merchant Navy, in the days when we had 'a Merchant Navy', like everything else........not the same now as back then.........progress, they call it, what I'm doing is nostalgic, hence the title.

I'd better stop......nostalging, and get this posted, and see what the site has to offer.

Ray.

Hi Ray welcome to the forum. I was never a spotter but I thought this was interesting. This is what a spotter on another group wrote.

(. A 'cop' was always just a 'cop', but an illicit cop - an engine underlined that hadn't actually been seen, or had been gussed at, was a 'fudge', and anyone perpetrating this heinous, shameful practice, was a 'fudger'.)

Welcome Ray.
You can be as nostalgic as you like here.:)
We have a good cross-section of the young and not so young on the forum. Have a look round. Hope you enjoy it.

That's very true Alan. At school on a Monday morning we used to discuss the weekends spotting. Anyone claiming to have "copped" a rarity was subjected to the third degree:D

thanks for the welcome.
I have a wonderful relationship with my two sons, one is 37 and one 35, they don't have a problem listening to me regale tales, many of which would involve trainspotting, other would be about my time in the Merchant Navy.

I was never one of those that went to the sheds, we knew people that went to Sheffield, Crewe and other .......far flung places, when you only get 1 bus an hour everywhere tends to be........'far flung', those that weren't should have been, grief, it was a 'grimy' country in those days.

Like the day I was spotting with George and Bruce, it was getting on, the night had drawn in, we were all starving, when you'd eaten your sandwiches in those days you didn't have money for sweets, crisps weren't heard of, that was it until you got home.
We had been considering going home, George and I decided to wait for a train we knew was due, Bruce couldn't wait, hunger had really gotten hold of him, so off he went.
George and I went down to where the tunnel, under the road started, a bit risky but we'd done it before, and waited.
The train that eventually went rushing past was called 'Warspite', maybe nothing remarkable about her looks but a train that we'd never seen before, in all of our years spotting.
We legged it to catch up with Bruce, to let him know what we'd seen, he then tried making out that he had actually seen it, but he didn't, if you're ever talking to a Bruce, and he makes claim to having seen Warspite, don't necessarily believe him.

If there happens to be a spate of 'Brucies', laying claim to that fact then I am quite willing to reveal his surname.

Ray.

I remember seeing 45724 "Warspite" at Manchester Victoria..........honest:D

yeah and im pretty sure i saw it in Cork Glanmire Road staiotn yesterday....

:D :) almost definate....

(Cork Station was just rebuilt and 0 6 0 no 35 is back on dispaly.This loco dates from about 1840 and is the oldest Irish survivor...so i really would have seen a steamer ....

Intersting thread...I recall being on holiday in Ilfracombe and from our hotel I could see the station in the distance...each morning I could see the Warship hauled London train leaving but it was too far away to see the number...one morning ( i confess,) it was all too much and I guessed the number....couldnt live with the shame and couldnt rememebr which one it was , so I had to start spotting Warships again from scratch...)

Hello and welcome to the forum Roy. I'm much to young to remember real steam, but I enjoy hearing stories from those days so am looking forward to your posts.

Adam

no problem there John, it's the 'Brucies' of this world that one has to challenge, nice response to the thread.

Ray.

Welcome aboard Ray. I am one of the 'not-so-young' John mentioned! You started me thinking back to my train spotting days, I got to see a good many steam locomotives from all parts of the UK, but they still went too quickly. :(

However, I still like to see and photograph modern stuff, especially from other countries during holidays, as variety here is a bit limited. :( .