My grandfather was a guard on LNER a long time back. When he died, he left my grandmother as a British Rail widow & she could never drive. She travelled around her hometown, Southport, by bus and long journeys by rail.
My sister & I often travelled to & from Southport on the train with her. Sometimes we went from Nottingham via Derby & Crewe & Liverpool Limestreet & other times via Manchester, Wigan etc..
On the NW local trains to Southport they used to often be siderail EMU's. We used to try and sit behind the driver, if it wasn't a 1st class carriage. I found it fascinating!

I prefer travelling by train to buses, despite the cost difference. I have a fondness for the Class37 & 40 diesels & will read books on them etc...as well as looking on the internet:)

As an eight year old I had the Norwich to Ely line at the bottom of the garden. I could tell the horn of a Brush Type 4 from a Brush Type 2 or an English Electric Type 3...... mixed in with a collection of Metropolitan Cammell and Gloucester DMUs.

If I didn't know the horn, I would be through the hedge at the line side in double quick time. An occasional BR Type 2 would make my day!

You know chaps and Chapesses I can't remember when I got interested in railways.
As kids my brother and I always had a model railway - something to do with the fact that our mother worked in a toyshop which sold Triang TT and OO for some reason we always got OO even though they had a huge stock of TT and a pre-built layout in the shop which we always played on.
BUT as for prototype we hardly ever saw any except when we went on holiday which was usually by rail

Easy!!! Dad taking me over Hounslow Heath, to lineside right opposite Feltham Shed and Marshalling yards!!! Scores of Steam! and the unforgetable G16's and ubiquitous S15's!! Magic. And the tours on Sunday mornings around some of the mainline statons..Either starting at Paddington, and taking in Marylebone, Euston, St Pancras and The Cross.. Or we'd do it the other way.. Start off at Liverpool Street, Fenchurch St, Cannon St, Blackfriars (I recall some used to be closed on Sundays??), Waterloo and finish off at Victoria! PRICELESS
I'd also add onto that. My own bunks on Feltham Shed 70B. and THAT Footbridge at Southall 81C.. If you got beyond the water tower, without the bellow of, "You Kids - Bugger Off" or worse, you'd 'Do the shed'!!!

My Model railways started with Clockwork Hornby 00 Gauge.

:)

Hi
As a youngster I had relatives who lived in Bradford. Used to travel from Glasgow Queen Street in the days of steam and later on Glasgow Central to Bradford Foster Square.

Remember the drop windows with the leather belt and coaches which where in my eyes supreme, including lovely pictures above the seats along with the net luggage racks. Can anyone still remember the smell as you went through a tunnel in the days of steam?

As a kid I had Triang OO guage models, Britannia and Princess Victoria.

Now repair Voyager engines (QSK 19), still railway related but not the same as steam or a Deltic for that matter ;)

My dad was chief electrical engineer out of Liverpool street in London looking after everything heading north.

Lots of fun with him as a boy in the 80's.

I look forward to adding to the community.

Best regards,

JW

Wow, what a thread!
What got me into trains?
I vaguely remember as a 3-4 year old sitting on the coal bunker at my paternal Grandma's house in Ambergate looking down at the trains passing by on the Derby to Chesterfield line, there was also a pre-war Hornby catologue in the attic which I must have read the print off!! Evidently my father was not into trains.
Also my maternal Grandma, who lived in Derby on Uttoxeter Old Road, would take me to the bridge overlooking Friargate Goods shed so I could watch the trains..........it kept me happy.....and cheaply..no PS3's then!!
Then my dad received some Hornby-Dublo in receipt of payment for some work he did........... I found it!!.......Wish I still had it!!

But really I don't know why trains fascinate me.....


THEY JUST DO!! MUST THERE BE A REASON???????

Yup, there is something about trains, just don't know what is is,...

The Triang Princess and Jinty trainset started me off and I still have it to this day in fact the transformer has powered all subsequent model railways including my present one, thats 50 years use. Travelling the North Wales routes as a kid on Rover tickets, memories include the DMU to Ffestiniog and the steam power to Amlwch. This set me up for life.