General Memories

Paul Hawken

• Earliest memory is from the 1970's going to get coal from the coal yard/ gas works in Cheltenham, when it was still served by trains, the smell of creosote, coal and diesels. I have recollections of visiting the Dart Valley Railway, as part of family summer holidays to Devon. Jump forward several years, and a tour mid-1980s of the midlands by narrow boat, and off course Heritage Railways, so Severn Valley Railway - Kidderminster Station hadn't long been open; Birmingham Railway Museum (Tysley), and Birmingham Science Museum. Also late 1980's, working in London so train spotting at pretty much every mainline station - you could still smell the smoke at Kings Cross following the big fire!

• I visited Swindon when the NRM was on tour, they had King George V in for a refit next to the national collection! This was pre- STEAM Swindon, so it was the old run down works. This was also when the museum was in the old building - I think Mechanics Institute; it was great!

• I have through work and other stuff travelled around the Southwest and Wales on trains; coming back to Cornwall from Cheltenham we got diverted through the Severn Tunnel because a train carrying a Nuclear flask was broken down between Gloucester and Bristol! I have travelled the line from Exeter to Guildford numerous times - most of which was single line!

Paul Cocking

• July 1977, dad took me to Doncaster- first loco was 55013 ' The Black Watch' platform 1 on a Kings Cross express- still picture it now!

Rich Wilson

• A cab ride in 37717 as it banked a steel coil train up the Lickey Incline in 2003.

Rob Fraser

• Possibly my earliest memory was when I was about 3, c.1962 and I was living in Cheam (though sadly not at 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam). I had undoubtedly been taken up to London for a special treat and was on my way home with my mother. I remember waiting on a terminal platform with the track on the left with a wall behind it. My mother held me back as I strained to look around the huge crowd of people on the edge platform for the train arriving and then being a bit frightened by the green monster hissing air from its brakes as it jolted to a halt in front of me with doors being flung open from the whole length of the train. For many years I wondered about this memory and where it had been. We’d moved to Reading in 1963 and as my railway knowledge grew with age and independent trips out, I realised that it wasn’t Paddington or even Waterloo, so the memory must have been before the move. I eventually discovered Platform 9 at Victoria one day c.1972 whilst chasing 4-SUBs and realised that’s where I’d been 10 years beforehand.

• When I went round Hamilton shed in 1974 there were just a few clapped out Gloucesters, Cravens and 107s plus an 08. Not sure they amounted to much more than about three and sixpence ha’penny.

Christopher MacDonald

• Watching the newly introduced intercity 125s on the east coast main line near Durham. I must of been 4 or 5 but have a memory of my dad taking me to a pub beer garden and watching the trains.

Simon Pilkington

• I remember as a child of 6 or so going a few times with my sister from Tonypandy station on what would be a C3xx to Pontypridd shopping (her not me!). Also going by car from The Rhondda to see my grandmother in Usk where sometimes we passed Hafodrynys colliery and there sometimes a ‘big’ loco in there, which of course I know now to be a Class 37. It all came to a head when we moved to Bridgend and the lad next door liked trains. I saw my first number I wrote down in 1971, which was D6892. The next few numbers I wrote down again at Bridgend we’re D1605, D1022, D1049, D7033 and a pairing of D5213/D7516. I will leave that thought here.

Ian John Horsfall

• My favourite memory was way back in 1976 the westerns was just about to come to end I was stood on a freezing temple meads just after Christmas waiting for something to move when around the corner cam D1010 obviously in trouble spluttering away it must have took a good half hour for it to get on Bath Road she just wouldn't give in till she made it home and it's stayed with me ever since years later I had the chance to see her in much better condition on the West Somerset Railway and had a few miles behind her in 2009.

Ian Penfold

• My first 125. Stuck outside Reading Station on the Berks / Hants line aged 12 and watching it glide in from Bristol direction in the dark. Best bit about it..... D1005 on the front of my train, the only day I got haulage in BR days with these fine machines... D1070 out to Plymouth and D1005 back. Remember it like yesterday.... sorry to see the 125s leaving us now but they have had a good innings.

• Recall as a kid in the early 70s going on holiday every year to Cornwall. Had not really caught the train bug at that stage but I recall vividly being fascinated as we passed Long Rock in the car. Do not recall ever seeing anything but just to think what was behind that wall or in the station makes be crazy! Later in 76 persuaded my parents to take me to Cambourne to see what goes on. Two 47s! Where were the Westerns when you needed them....!

Andy Stephenson

• Favourite - seeing HS4000 Kestrel stabled at Crewe as we passed on a Mystery excursion.

• Earliest - in my pram seeing crossing gates across road and a steam train passing (too young to won a pencil and notepad.

• Unusual - watching Kieran M disappear down the line away from our local station as he jumped on a Freightliner flat that accelerated rapidly - too quick for him to jump off. Pillock!

Adam Curtis

• Waiting for Deltics at Welwyn Garden City earliest and favourite.

• Most unusual, cab ride in a 305 to Liverpool St

Morris Dewhurst

• 37055 in December 2001 when she was reinstated sandite loco working from Saltley to Didcot with a load of welded rail due back light engine only to be told we had two FGW mk3's to take back to Tyseley, bearing in mind 055 probably hadn't been over 60 mph for some time and with some good brakes in tow the rock and roll ride back at over 90 mph in the dark was something I have never forgotten.

Les Tappenden

• Earliest memory was going out for our monthly Sunday drive with Dad and climbing a bank at the side of a road (possibly Runcorn somewhere) and seeing a load of light blue with red wheels 0-6-0 loco's in a big shunting yard (later worked out they were YE Janus) but never worked out where.

• Most favourite memory was circa 1977, a family day out to the "new" NRM in York, we parked next to the wall at the bottom of the car park and my 2 brothers and I dived out and instantly shinnied up the wall to be greeted by the sight and noise of my first ever Deltic which was and still is my all time favourite 55006 The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry.

• Most unusual memory has got to be at the age of 14 being invited into the cab of a class 25 which was taking Allerton TMD's breakdown train out to a derailment at Runcorn Folly lane and ending up driving it all the way there and watching the recovery of a large tanker wagon then getting a passenger train back ! !

Dave James King

• I was spotting at Newport in the late 90s. I was probably about 12-13 years old. A HST arrived late heading to Bristol, the passengers boarded. I noticed a midddle aged chap and an old woman board the coach in front of me leaving the door open. To help speed the train along I shut the door. The train was whistled away and as the driver applied power I saw the middle aged guy running down the centre of the coach. Turns out he was only helping his mother onto the train, leaving his wife at Newport. Next stop Bristol! Embarrassing for me I went off to the cafe. My Dad found it hilarious.

Neilboo Boothman

• On board the Cheshire Cheeser tour back on 26 Nov 83. Part of the route took us along the now gone Mersey Board and Harbour Dock line in Birkenhead. Our noisy 40192, with a head poking out of every carriage window was met by householders coming to their doors to see what was going on, as only freight trains normally and probably infrequently by that point, came along the line.

Keith Brown

• One of my first railway memories was seeing Clayton's working the Rowntree's and Ponteland trips in Newcastle. My school was close to the line.

Liam White

• First memory would be class 37s at the bridge next to the church where you could go for the avoiding line.

• Favourite would be 37408 and 411 on the final York to Carlisle.

• Unusual was watching KOYLI dragging a shutter about when it went around to thrall in York to collect a coach just seemed really funny haha

Jonathan Russell

• First memory would be spotting the coal trains at Gilmour Street with my grandparents. It’s where my love for the class 66 and EWS livery grew.

• One of my favourite memories was doing Mallaig to Fort William behind a black 5, window-hung the entire trip and by the end my face was as black as the 5.

• Probably one of the most unusual was the time I went out to see the Cumbrian 37s. Only to find out that the service had ended weeks prior. However what I didn’t expect was to see the Flying Scotsman that day. Didn’t even know there was a tour on that day.

Russ Sacko Saxton

• Earliest memory, seeing green Peaks, 25s and 31s plus the dying embers of steam, 8Fs, 9Fs, WDs and assorted standards along the Erewash valley in the mid 60s.

• Favourite memory, my first trip on a train, summer 1970 Nottigham-St Pancras behind a green 47.

• Unusual memory, bunking a totally unoccupied hamilton depot in 1981, millions of pounds of railway stuff with not a soul to look after it.

Martin Davis

• Earliest memory is me aged 4 in a caravan at Abergele in 1966 waking my Mum & Dad in the middle of the night to helpfully point out that there was a steam train going past! I think they were VERY grateful as they continued to mention it for many years afterwards.

Adrian Don

• When I was very young we lived in Wolverhampton and I have a memory from when I must have been only four or five of a steam loco at Wolverhampton High Level. Looking back I'd say it was a Black 5

Gordon Lacy

• Earliest (diesel) memory would be seeing (& hearing!) "DELTIC" for the first time on the ECML,

• As for 'unusual', seeing D6560 double-heading the Down Cement with A3 60106 "Flying Fox"(!)

• As for favourite memory, it'd have to be between either, hitting 117mph with 55021 on 11 IId, touching 100mph three times between Paddington & Exeter with 824 + 868 on the "Riv", or maybe a sustained output of 2,300hp recorded off 40157 in Scotland! Electrically, touching 140mph with 91017.

Brian Murrish

• I remember when the colliery (Kilmersdon) was working and a mate and myself had a go at driving Kilmersdon (Peckett 1788 of 1929), also around the same time the shed at Radstock was storage and restoration base for one of the S and D 2-8-0s

Adam Ross

• I remember when I was young, very vividly the smells from the sleepers etc of penrith train station and seeing electric trains being scared.

• Also I remember the first time being on a sprinter train from Carlisle to Newcastle when i was young too. I also remember the first time i seen and heard the intercity 125 with the napier turbocharger screaming away nothing better to listen too but scary at the time.

• When we moved to cornwall I used to visit Plymouth via a 125 or a loco hauled class 47 it was amazing and loved Plymouth station. When I was 13/14 me and my mum got a FGW 125 to reading now that was an adventure. A few years later on a school trip we visited london and went to london padd that was brilliant. The tube network was amazing too!! Lots of memories on our local railways.

John Walker

• First Railway Memory: Either London St Pancras to Nottingham Midland or London Liverpool Street to Harwich. Both were from the early 1960s onwards and I was very young. You can add to both of those journeys the London Underground railway leg to the BR Stations.

• Favourite Railway Memory: Hoek Van Holland to Hamburg on the Holland- Scandinavian Express from the early 1960s onwards on what seemed like an epic journey across Northern Europe. Early journeys included some steam haulage and all journeys featured locomotive changes as well as loosing and adding carriages en-route. Sadly, the Holland Scandinavian Express stopped running some time back. You can still do the old route but you now need to change trains a few times.

• Most Unusual Railway Memory: Easily the most surreal was a journey on Okehampton’s Heritage Railway when the diesel broke down on the way back and all the passengers had to climb down to the track and walk back. It was less than half a mile back and the Okehampton people were great (they even offered us all free cake in the station café). It’s not exactly what we had in mind for the visit but this made if very different from the norm.

Rosie Olle

• As a child we used to catch a steam train from Loughborough Central station to visit my grandma in Portsmouth. We sometimes took our cat and let him roam around in the compartment! I remember the steam engine coming into the station and the engine driver looking out. When we got to Marylebone my mum used to give the engine driver half a crown and thank him for getting us there safely!

Marilyn Moore

• I am 70 and come from a railway family. Grandad was a driver of steam trains, mam worked at Greenstreet time office (Darlington) in the war and dad was a railway policeman One of my earliest memories of a rail journey was an 'excursion' to Windermere, including a boat trip - I think that BR operated them. It must have been over Stainmore and the rolling stock was ancient. I wonder if anyone else remembers that trip?

Roy Thomas

• Darlington railway station was not only the place to travel on leave (RAF Catterick RAF Regiment) but the place to meet girlfriends or have a pint at the platform bar.

Nigel Wilson

I remember back in the 50’s boarding a train at Euston with my mum to go and visit my grandmum in the North.

Sitting in the carriage I saw (and heard) the wheeltapper work his way down the train. With a longhandled hammer he would tap each wheel to hear it ring (a dull sound would mean the wheel was cracked and faulty).

All done ultrasonically now of course.

Seems a very long time ago now

Steve Bray

I visited Feltham Yard a few times, the first in '62 with two older cousins. I didn't pay too much attention on the early visits - I was seven in '62 - because there were only some diesel shunters kicking about and I wanted to see the steamers........on the second visit I did see a big tank loco (G16?) being towed out along the line back towards London but other than that it was all 0-6-0 diesels which I now know were Class 12s.

Pete Long

At the end of steam I got to Lansdown on Saturdays, if allowed out! The image in my mind is piles of parcels, rolls of newspapers and stacks of boxes on every conceivable spare space, ready to go on the appropriate passenger train. All Cheltonians remember Tilly’s Crumpets, there were always plenty of them ready to go.

The staff all looked ancient to a ten year old, I recall there were ticket inspection kiosks at the platform level of both platforms. Often a grump old so and so who wouldn’t let you on to spot without a platform ticket. Stopped going when steam stopped!

Jack Gregory

The Colne - Skipton line was little used. I last used it in late 60s to get to earby and there were about 4 on the train. Almost always had to change at Colne. Few direct services from Burnley etc. Blackpool Central was awe inspiring to a small child. Huge station. About the size of Paddington. Southport line is a vague memory. Line closed when we were on holiday and we went home by a very circuitous route. Yarmouth Beach had been closed 10 years when we parked there.

Malcolm Hickman

My first memories are of our house in Allen Street. Our bedroom window faced the East Coast Line coming out of Bank Top. I remember being fascinated by the Silver Link racing past.

I come from a railway family. My grandad worked at North Road (Darlington), my brother was in the S&T and my dad was a carriage and wagon foreman, so railways were in my blood. Dad got promotion, so the family moved to Redcar then West Hartlepool. So we left the town (Darlington) in 1955 but still had relatives living in Hunden’s Lane, so got back occasionally. Went looking for our old house, but it had gone.

'Brigster'

1955. My earliest distinct railway memory is of being perhaps 3 years old, in a corridor train, unlike the compartmentalised carriages without corridors that I must have already been familiar with. I found the Euston to Blackpool train absolutely fascinating. Playing in the corridor I was called back in to say goodbye to my Dad, due to get off at Preston for work whilst me & mum went on to Blackpool. I was so absorbed in all the novelty I idly looked round the compartment and inexplicably asked, looking round six suited gents, “Which one is it?” I genuinely didn’t recognise him in a suit! I didn’t understand the laughter then, or on the numerous occasions when the story was retold.

Favourite memory: Basel to Milan in 1972. Especially at Wassen where the line goes through two spiral tunnels to pass the distinctive Wassen church 3 times, at different altitudes and in alternating directions.

Unusual memory, 1973 I guess. A four hour journey from Wigan North Western to Liverpool during catastrophic signalling failures. It involved the driver exiting at every line side phone, reversing north out of the WCML via the Bamfurlong curve onto the proper route and an impromptu excursion from St.Helens Shaw Street to St. Helens Junction through the fiery, glassworks furnace-lined goods line.

Tony Platy

My earliest memory of the railway's was my mum and dad taking me to Manchester to meet my sister at Piccadily and I saw my first class 25 at Victoria on station pilot duties this was in 1975.

I started train spotting officially in August 1978 I started at a place on the North Wales coast called Penmaenmawr at the stone quarry and my first loco that I saw was 47537 later named Sir Gwynedd/County of Gwynedd.

My very first class 47 was 47537 which I got at Bangor North Wales and my last two deltics which were 55009/019 I got at Doncaster works open day in 1983.

Terry Allen

I remember train spotting as a young boy in the 60s, a Class 20 pulled into the station and the driver invited me and a fellow spotter into the cab to have a look around, the driver then got the Right of Way and off we went up to the next red signal at the Ffyffes yard near Goodmayes station, we were then asked to leave and make our own way back to Chadwell Heath station walking by the side of the line, only to get a clip around the ear from Charlie the station master, still it was worth it.

Marilyn Moore

I remember the teddy trip (British Rail's Ready Teddy Go event) to London. Went with my family- 2 kids and my mother. The first thing was we got separated on the underground train, then rejoined at the next stop. The second thing was the smell that followed us around that day- getting stronger and stronger. My mother kept saying that it was the southerners who weren't as clean as us northerners. Eventually , standing at a bus stop we traced the smell to my mother's carrier bag- salmon sandwiches that went in the waste bin!

Tony Walker

My best memory was seeing a clan pacific pulling the London Bradford train from my bedroom window on Oak Street, Heeley, Sheffield and was amazed as it was usually a jubilee the loco was 'Clan Fraser'. Over the following weeks all the Carlisle clans turned up on that train then ended up on Millhouses Shed for servicing the shed had to call in police to stop all of us spotters getting in to see them. Happy days.

Mike Bishop

Back in the mid 50's we would come out of school and go down to Sheffield Victoria or Midland Station and on a 2d platform ticket get on a train and go anywhere. If you didn't leave the BR estate there was no other cost.

Our favourite destination was Doncaster shed where a lot of maintenance was done, nowadays health and safety would preclude any such happening but back then it was pure magic. One notable event was a comment in one of the Ian Allen publications, the bible of trainspotting, was that Deltic was on a test run.

This was something quite special as steam power was everything then. A gang of us went to Tamworth where there was a large field along the track side adjacent to the station, still just on a 2d platform ticket, and literally thousands witnessed the first public showing of Deltic flashing past.

At the time it seemed to be a moment in history. Can you imagine nowadays allowing a 9 or 10 year old free reign to travel anywhere around the country on their own? Just a thought.

Jan Clayton

In 1968, I married and moved into Park Hill Flats, my younger Brother in laws gave me a book to check all the trains travelling through Sheffield Midland Station; Brush 2’s, 4’s English Electric ,Flying Scotsman to name a few , saw them all!! , I can describe them all to this day, wha