My interest in railways began in quite a tangential way I suppose.
Up until the age of 12, I had no interest in trains at all; in fact, I can vividly recall being terrified at the age of 3 or 4 by a steam locomotive on the Hull-Withernsea line. And then, one morning during assembly at my school, I noticed that a group of lads sat behind me who were from another form were looking at those strange ABC books that boys in my form had also been passing around. I mentioned this fact to one of the lads from my form, and decided to find out what all of the fuss was about. Not only did this encourage a bit of inter-form friendliness, but within a week I had purchased a copy of the DMU ABC ( I was reliably informed that it would be more use, as DMU's were endemic in Hull), and I was hooked for life. Thenceforth, every Sunday was spent bunking Botanic Gardens, every Friday evening after school involved a race to Paragon Station in order to see the arrival of the Scarborough train (always a Class 37), and every breaktime meant a trip across the playing fields to cop the Type 1 on its daily trip to the small yard at the closed Marfleet station.
In time, the Newton Hall Grammar School trainspotting club spread its wings further and further afield. Trips to York and Doncaster were followed as we got more adventurous by spending weekends away, 'doing' all of the depots in London and the south east, Scotland, South Wales...you name it, and we probably went there. And if nothing else, the geographical knowledge acquired certainly impressed our Geography masters ( "Where is the Eden Valley?" , " Settle and Carlisle line Sir!!")
But the thing that really got me was something that I thought about whilst stood at the stops at Paragon station one Friday evening many, many years ago. I looked at the rails where they came up against the buffers, and realised that, give or take a change of gauge, and the English Channel (conveniently crossed by a train ferry
), I was looking at one end of a continuous ribbon of steel which stretched all the way across the Eurasian continent. All the way....across France, Poland, the Urals and then past Lake Baikal until it ended on the shores of the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Maybe it sounds a bit trite in this world of intercontinental air transport, but if you just sit and think about it, it's an incredible thing.
Trains and railways...I just love 'em