[redudley]

This is an extract from my memoirs that I decided to write in 1997 showing how I came to love the railways.


My earliest memory of my attraction to the steam engine was sometime in 1954/55 when I was 9/10 years old.
It was one evening after arriving back from a visit to family friends at Worcester that my parents and I left our train at Smethwick Junction.
The train was still at the platform, when I drew level with it on my way up the path from the station, I just stood there watching this big green engine through the fence.
The one thing that has stuck in my mind all these years was that bright shiny name I was looking down at, Fairy Battle.
How this castle class engine came to be on this train I never did find out, as its home shed was 87E Swansea Landore at this time.
I just stood there as if in a trance, until my parents called and I had to go.
I am convinced this was the start of my love affair with railways.
My parents had often taken me to Worcester before and we always went by train, but this was the first time I had taken any interest in what we were being pulled by.
Perhaps this is why I have always had a leaning towards the Western region.
My favourite spot was sat high on the bank overlooking the Hawthorns Halt at Galton junction were the W.R. main line from Wolverhampton to London joined with the Stourbridge/Worcester line for the run into Birmingham Snow Hill station.
All through my school days I would spend many happy hours at this location, watching Kings, Castles and Halls on the main line, while on the branch there would be pannier tanks on locals to Stourbridge and 2-6-2 tanks on other trains. A Grange or Manor would sometimes be seen on a goods, while one of the western railcars would go by on the main line heading for Dudley. This would leave the Wolverhampton line at Swan Village.