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.

my love of trains..........probably because I lived in a back to back house in Dronfield, outside the front door was the main road from Chesterfield to Sheffield and round the back was the main railway line.

the house was very old, we lived there with our great grandma and our parents, early in my life we moved to a village a few miles away Dronfield Woodhouse.

we went to visit, and help gran once a week and I use to remember the train number of any train that went roaring through Dronfield, so at an early age I was trainspotting.

a few years later I would go to Dronfield with a couple of mates in the school holidays and spend the day getting up to mischief and trainspotting, no parental control for the whole time, it was wonderful.

remember once, it was getting rather late, we knew that a train was due, I was with 2 mates, one decided he couldn't stay and started to make his way home, I stayed with George, we went down the embankment, this was at the bottom of Stubley Hollow, and close to the track, the train that went through was Warspite, an engine we had never seen before in all our years of trainspotting.
We use to get certain engines that went through in great regularity, Gilbert & Ellis Islands, Green Howards, being a couple that spring to mind, we were overjoyed to have waited and seen Warspite.







ray............in Batley.

what was the service that went through our region, was it LNER, or LMS? I can never remember.

Driver Uniforms
 

Hi - I am looking to find out what a Thames Train driver, and a FGW driver would have been wearing in the 1990s....is anyone able to help?? The basic clothing - colours and any accessories that they would have had

Many Thanks!

My first post! :)

My interest in railways started back in the late 90s when I was a youngster, I remeber standing at London Bridge and several 'Slamdoor units (CIGs, CEPs, VEPs) passing by and stopping, all in NSE livery.

Another good memory of mine is standing at Stratford around the year 2000 and seeing Cl312s, Cl315s in Firt Great Eastern livery.

hi there
 

My love for the railway has been there since I was a little girl (ok so im only 21 but hey we all start somewhere)
My life long dream has been to become a train driver and im hoping to live my dream very soon
My favourite all time train in an XC 220 voyager but also take a fancy to:
,150
323
170
350
172

Xxx

Not exactly unusual, but a small train set with a small blue tank engine did the trick at about 6 year old. I still have some of the old stock and flexible track (bought in my teens) and had a half attempt to put it back together a few years ago, but didn't finish, as the kids thought it was boring !!

Found the small blue engine looked like the top had melted a bit and then remembered that I tried to install a smoke box in there at some point, which didn't really go as planned !

I grew up in Kent, a part of the country that was served by that division of the Southern Railway that ran from London down to the South East with the London Terminus being Waterloo and Charing Cross, or to be more geographically correct they are the other way around, and at the other end to such places as Ashford, Chatham Hastings and Folkstone.

The house I lived in during those pre eleven plus and more importantly pre Beeching days, backed onto a part of the railway line that formed sections of the goods yard for Tonbridge Station, the only barrier between our garden and the goods yard being a single chain link fence about three feet high.

It did not take long to realise that if I stood at the fence and waved at the drivers and firemen on the engines, as they moved into or out of the goods yard, as often as not they would wave back and some would even sound the whistle as in clouds of dirty black steam they shunted past me. So it was only a very short progression from this to some freinds starting to note the engine numbers and later the engine types down in pages torn from the back of our school exercise books.

I am not sure exactly when how or even by whom it was decided to organise a more formal group, it may have been Phil Walker, who later went on to work for British Railway as a station porter at Tonbridge, but a group was formed and we called ourselves I now recall, somewhat grandly, The Tonbridge Spotters.

So it was that some 59 years ago now I first officially changed from a boy who occasionally waved at passing trains to become a fully fledged member of The Tonbridge Spotters, a group of like minded schoolboys, and more importantly friends, when we all failed the eleven plus exams and collectively left primary school and headed off to the local secondary modern, were to stay together until 1964 when we all left school aged 15 and went to make our own way in the world.

We as a group seemed to vary in membership numbers over the years, some would leave the group and some would join as we all ventured unsteadily through the onset of puberty, discovering the opposite sex and being teenagers during the swinging sixties. The one common bond and interest being trains. The Tonbridge Spotters outings were confined mainly to weekends, school holidays or vary occasionally those long warm summer evenings, but outings we did have and perhaps by today's standards they may not have been very adventurous they were enjoyable.

The outings were often planned during school dinner times in a corner of the bike shed or if raining in the school library and with what we thought to be military precision. They varied from sometimes nothing more simple than all meeting up at Tonbridge station, buying a platform ticket, or sometimes not buying a platform ticket, and spending the day sat at the end of a platform pencil and notebook in hand. Occasionally though the outings saw us range further afield, sometimes we would ride our bikes to some distant station and very occasionally, when our pocket money would allow, we would travel to London to spend a day around some of the engine sheds like Nine Elms, sadly now long gone and the area is a housing estate.

One abiding memory I have to this day of those adventures was the snacks or lunch packs our mothers would prepare for us. Without fail and to a boy they would consist of a couple of sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper the fillings would invariably be either cheese, spam, paste or egg. Also included would be, if lucky, a bag of crisps, Smiths with the small blue bag of salt, in those far off days crisps did not come in flavours just plain, if crisps were not included then perhaps a hard boiled egg would be added, this would be accompanied by a thermos flask of tea to wash it all down, the whole epicurean delight being carried in a duffle bag over the shoulder, I wonder now if they still make duffle bags.

Even as comparatively young as we were we always adopted the practice of opening all our sandwich boxes and laying them before us and by sharing we told ourselves that it helped maintain a varied diet. From time to time mishaps occurred, occasionally and without thinking one of us would drop our bag to the ground and then hear a slight clinking sound as the glass inner liner of the thermos flask shattered and the unfortunate individual watched as slowly the brown hot liquid seeped out of the bag to form a puddle on the ground, normally this was greeted by a roar of laughter from the rest of us but we would always end up sharing so the worst thing that would happen was that the individual would have to go home and face his mum and own up that he had broken yet another thermos flask.

When this happened to me, as it did from time to time, I was always given the lecture about carelessness, and asked in a very stern voice did I know how much these things cost and just to teach me a lesson my pocket money would be diverted the very next week to offset the cost of a replacement. It never was and by the next weeks outing of The Tonbridge Spotters I would always have a new flask for carrying my tea.

I live now in the North East and it is now some 59 years later however I am I suppose still a member of The Tonbridge Spotters, I do not ever recall us being formally disbanded we just left school and went our own way, perhaps who knows I may be the sole remaining member of The Tonbridge Spotters.

Hi Chuffer.

I really enjoyed reading about your boyhood experiences. Brought back a few memories I can tell you.

Welcome aboard.:D

Hi Chuffer, nice story mate. Like Philip it brought back fond memories for me too. Those flasks! mine was always a tartan one! and just like you we laughed when one got broken but all mucked in to ensure no one went without. Jam or salad with salad cream sandwiches were my two favourites! Oh those memories. Thanks for sharing
Regards
Phil

Hi Chuffer,

Welcome aboard the forum. I really enjoyed reading about your boyhood memories.

Memories indeed; personally, I carried my stuff around in a khaki bag designed for holding gas masks in WW2! Oddly enough, I worked on the IOW ferries 1973-86, and one of the blokes used to make great quality duffle bags out of sail canvas, and most of the ferry crews had one. As for crisps being only salted - when I was first introduced to trains, it was when my grandad used to push me to Tilehurst station on Sunday morning. After a while watching trains (c.1952-53), we'd go just up the road to The Roebuck Hotel, and he's park me in the covered bit by the door, and get me a bottle of Pepsi with two straws (which never emerged from the neck of the bottle), and a bag of OXO flavoured crisps! So they DID exist (although they weren't Smiths).
As for flasks - I never bothered; my dad was a chippy on a building site, and I'd drunk enough of the indeterminate brown stuff out of a flask to know that I could live quite happily without it. I always took a bottle of Tizer, a packet of Smiths crisps, a packet of Rolos, a pork pie, and the inevitable Lyon's Individual Fruit Pie (and possibly a banana or apple). I wasn't keen on eggs, but my mate Roger, with whom I did a fair bit of spotting, always produced a hard-boiled egg, which he then cracked on my head to get it started. I still occasionally go with Roger on spotting/photo shoot jaunts, even after all these years - in April we spent a week in Germany, and we're off to the Czech Republic in a months time. My grandad's pre-Sunday lunch pint's got a lot to answer for! Talking of which, in April 2008, I returned to Tilehurst station for the first time in probably 40+ years, in order to get some photos of the trains, and decided to actually go INTO The Roebuck for a pint myself; I was looking forward to explaining that I'd been waiting 55 years to see what the INSIDE of the pub looked like. It was closed for refurbishment.....

:):rolleyes:

Gooday all
My introductory message and why I am interested in loco's. It is because of what I did.
I served my time as a fitter/turner/erector. Six years apprentiship at the Derby Loco from 1948 to 1954 in 8 shop (erecting shop) 9 shop (machine shop) and diesel shop.
But my story begins around 1942 when as a kid I went train watching as it was called in those days. It generated an interest in loco's that chose for me my future career and trade. I have lived for thirty six years in New Zealand and have only just recently learnt of the great interest in the restoration of the steamers. This interest has been stimulated with some D.V.D's that I have seen of the loco's and railways In the U.K
Regards 8shopderby

i suck at creating projects and for me this will be something big. i always have this habit on starting something and eventually not able to finish it. i know how train projects are hard to do but this will be like a big call for me to do something different. now i am halfway with my layout and feels excited doing it.

Go to the bbottom right of the page and see: Forum Jump. Click on then you can put this post in the Railway Modelling section.Hope this helps.:)

At first, I never really liked the railway. As a younger child, I was scared of HSTs (yes I was, no lie) and I did not enjoy taking the train either. Even when I grew up and had to start using the railway myself, I found the journey process to be long and rather tedious.

It was purely by chance that one day, whilst searching through the limited stack of PC Games in Blockbuster, I came across Trainz 2004. Despite feeling a little sceptical, I decided to give it go. It was from then on that my interest in the railway grew. No sooner had I started making layouts on the Trainz surveyor, I was down at my local station, writing down running numbers.

It was just two months ago that I started taking my first railway photographs. Now, I aim to take shots at least once every fortnight.

Whilst my railway enthusiasm did not get off to the best of starts, it is now one of my many interests and key passions.

Once the bug grabs you its there in your blood no matter when you started. I love the photography and have been known to take in excess of 500 in a day!
Glad you enjoy the hobby and good hunting for the future
Regards
Phil

born in earshot of steam passenger services?
 

Hard to say why I like railways, maybe the above is the reason or that as a child trains took us to the seaside or maybe even as a child I realized trains (some) were the fastest and most comfortable way to travel. Davidg

Welcome to the Forum 8shopderby. Good to see that the influence of the Midland Railway/LMS extends half way round the World. Look forward to your posts.

Best wishes,

John H-T.

Not really sure where my interest came from, Dad was an aircraft enthusiast and he passed on his love of aeroplanes to me. We spent many hours together on airfields and at home we used to make models together. I can remember as a child going with my Gran on holiday to Wales every year and running along behind her friend's house was a railway serving the coal mine. I spent many happy hours watching the steam engines there.

I got an interest in model railways just after I started work but never quite got round to building one (getting close to starting it now, some 40+ years later.)

When I started working at a builders merchant beside Guildford station was when my interest in railways started to really grow and then a holiday in Somerset brought me into contact with the West Somerset Railway and from there on it has just kept growing.

Luckily my wife and daughter don't seem to mind whether they go out to look at aeroplanes or trains so I seem to be in a state of total win. Both of them are keen on the idea of having a model railway in the spare room, the only thing slowing me up at the moment is their regular offers of 'help'.

Now I'm working closer to home and I have Farnborough North station right behind me, sadly though I have no window facing that way so all I can do is listen to the trains going through behind me all day, but that's better than nothing.

My fascination with both steam and railways could be an inbred/inblood thing (great granfather was an engineer who specialised in static steam engines) all my cousins are of the same mind, even though we have lived in different parts of the country all our lives.

We lived in a mining village and had the railway in close proximity where a few of us used to go to watch the shunting etc, and to make matters even better, one of my spotting mates who lived in the same street, his father was the loco driver at the local colliery. We often used to go to the colliery and either help fire the loco or drive it, under supervision of course, there wasn't much room in the cab of an NCB austerity saddle tank for 2 adults and 2 kids, but at least we had the rides and enjoyed every minute of it.

The village we lived in was between the LMS and LNER routes (Sheffield Rotherham and Doncaster) and we spent probably an equal amount of time spotting at all 3 locations. As we got older we moved further afield for the spotting, York, Carlisle, Crewe and Derby to name a few.

As we got even older we found out about beer and women and something had to give, unfortunately it was the railway, but it has never been far from my mind and in these last 20 years or so has been resurrected. I still go out with the camera and take shots of mainly infrastructure and wagons and the occasional loco, but modelling has become the "in thing" for me now, I can re-live my youth but in model form.
Alan

Watercolour captures steam
 

Hi I am new to the forum and would like to share my passion for steam engines and the railway. I have had the privelidge of meeting a talented watercolour artist Richard Vessey. His works capture the age of steam and the railway world. Here are his paintings. My love for steam was as a little girl in Skipton where I could stand near the line and look over the wall and watch the train fill with water. I can remeber travelling there on the steam trains and all the yellow prcelain in the loos.
There are more of Richards works on the website http://www.wix.com/TheMacGallery/the-mac-gallery
Thanks Maggie

What lovely paintings. He has a gift.

What got me interested in railways? sadly, my dear father passed away. I found solace in collecting old railway photos/topographical postcards. (All with a family collection.)
They're like 'windows on the past'.

Memories...

Clockwork Hornby 00 Gauge trainset started me off at the age of 4 years

So that is where it started for me:D

I used to love my old clockwork set. Good times.

I first got interested in railways when I was a three year old in 1960 and my grandfather used to take me for walks to see the Dyserth Quarry branch line locomotives working the stone traffic between Prestatyn and Dyserth.
I have vague memories of seeing 45156 Ayrshire Yeomanry working the branch several times in the early 60's.
At that time quite a few of my elder relatives were working on the railways.
These days though, it's my eldest daughter who works on the railways as an operations manager for a national rail company.

Probably my earliest memory was of being taken to look at trains by my father in my really young days, I was hooked.
As a young person I was obsessed with Steam locomotives and the railways in general, Music and Sport, I am now nearly 64 and my interests are still the same,I have other pastimes but have retained my love of railways from childhood 1948 onwards.

weekend trips to my aunt/uncle's caravan at a site near Durham. My bed next to the vans' front window gave me a panoramic view of the ECML - about two miles distant between Chester le Street and Durham. I'd watch (and listen) to deltic hauled sleeper trains (discernable only by the faint lights of the coaches) picking their way through the landscape into the small hours...:rolleyes:

I dont know what got me interested in railways but Ive been interested since I was about 9 or 10, Im 64 now. Your right about girls and beer, Ive lost a bit of interest in those but Ive never lost any interest in railways.

60501
 

I lived near Doncaster/Sheffield/Leeeds east coast main about 2 miles south of York and had to cross a railway bridge to go to school which was by the lines and Dringhouses sidings. I was well places to take the numbers and before the end of the first year had visited Doncaster plant for the centenary. In April it will be 50 yrs since This started. 243 sheds visited by the end of steam.

Like many other people from my generation it would be Thomas the Tank Engine/The Railway Series!