Now the story can be told. East Anglia August 1987.
We decided to head over to see Toms grandparents in Clacton towards the end of the summer holidays.
I didn't really know the area although I had visited Liverpool Street a few times.
What we did was get a return to London that covered us to go via any route including Bristol and we took a Salisbury bound train (a 47 on the 1105 to Brighton), where we changed onto a 33/1 and TC set up to Waterloo. We hopped onto the tube and spent a bit of time at Euston before visiting Willesden and then on to Stratford (low level) on a 2EPB to get the locos that were on shed (we bravely walked through the grotty tunnel to do this)
We caught an EMU back to Liverpool Street and found the beast 47580 in banger blue with silver roof and black headcodes at the front of our Norwich bound train rather than the expected 86. Chuffed to bits we stood up at the front windows for the entire thrash to Colchester and boy did it go. Up there with my favourite 47 journeys for all time that one.
At Colchester we changed onto a Jaffa cake liveried class 309 to Clacton before finding 'Peg and Stanleys' house, dinner and sleep. It had been an excellent day.
Day 2 A 309 back to Colchester and then a very smart 86228 up to Norwich, saw a few interesting locos stabled at Ipswich.
I apologise for the lack of numbers on this trip. I lost two of my early books years ago (it's amazing that I didn't lose all of them really) and only have complete records of 47s from around then as well as clear memories and memories that Tom and I have pieced together. I have a fairly good idea of what locos we had that week but I'm not totally definite so it's probably best just to give the overview.
Onwards. We saw 08867 The Canary drawing in the stock for our next train which was a 31/4 on a Norwich to Birmingham service. We jumped on early when it had nearly stopped but it then carried on for a couple of coach lengths which we were quite pleased about.
A fine bit of class 31 haulage to March was then had, where we jumped ship and headed to March depot to see some of the withdrawn locos that had been dumped there.
We had been told that people had been arrested unscrewing bits off locos and to be careful about what we got up to, so we were, ish.
March depot was incredible. Lines and lines of recently switched off locos, mainly Peaks but also 03s, 08s, 20s, wagons, all sorts. It was a true elephants graveyard.
After this we took a class 101 to Peterborough and then another 101 back to Ely before getting another 31/4 to Ipswich in the dark (and very noisy).
Back to Clacton then on an 86 to Colchester and a 309 to Clacton. Again quite a day.
Day 3. We headed back to Liverpool Street and then onto Paddington for a 47 to Westbury in order to get a 33 from there to Bristol, so far so good.
A couple of older friends had shown us a slightly naughty trick with a BR toilet roll a few days before and in our exuberant youth we decided to emulate this at the back of a class 33 hauled train on the way to Bristol. I'm not proud of this and we were only 14 you have to remember.
The thing to do was to put a finger from each hand in the toilet roll and make a hand toilet roll holder, hold it out of the window (one on each side of the rear door of the rear carriage), let the wind catch it so that the oh so strong toilet paper unwinds faster and faster until you have two streamers the length of around a hundred feet wafting along behind the train.
It looked brilliant. Right up until the moment the guard caught us and told us we were to be arrested upon arrival at Bristol Temple Meads.
Now clearly this was not going to go down well with our parents and would probably put an end to our travelling freedoms. A plan was needed.
When we arrived at Bradford on Avon we waited for the optimum moment of the guard blowing his whistle and waving the right away to the driver. Just as the train started moving we opened the rear door, jumped off, slammed the door behind us (did the guard see and have a wry chuckle to himself?), ran up a bank and out onto a road like we were being pursued by the hounds of hell.
We somehow got a bus back to Westbury with what little money we had between us and dared to go onto the station to check train times to Exeter. We had about an hour and a half to wait so we hid in a bush near the bridge and scurried down to jump on a 125 at the last minute convinced by now that they'd have our descriptions circulated.
The first person we walked into was Toms mum (my step mum) walking back from the buffet! She's no fool and knew something was up but didn't press us for details thankfully. We slunk off to another part of the train and calmed ourselves down.
Not many photos this time but film was expensive for a 14 year old and getting them processed even more so. They didn't always come out properly either and you had no way of knowing how good they were until you got them back from the chemist. It's so different today of course but then the variety of trains turning up in unusual places is much reduced...
1 - An 86 heading for London stops at Colchester while we're waiting for our Norwich train.
2 - March depot, a huge line of Peaks that hadn't been there long, many had probably been switched off a few weeks before. There were still some running on the mainline though.
3 - 45013 and 03112 with a strange couple fiddling around with the 03, he obviously didn't get the memo that said leave things alone.