TRIVIA - Things you saw travelling on BR that you don't see today

[ChiefPlanner]

worse than pre-eurostar St Pancras?

Old St Pancras on a Winters evening was shocking , though the pre 1988 Kings Cross underground was awful too - what made it worse was the connecting subway from LT to BR which stunk worse than a 390 , I wrote in and complained and the reply (courteous enough) , was that there were blocked sewage drains they could not access.

So - not all brilliant - but then there were highlights like the waiting room at Hereford which had polished furniture , fresh flowers brought in by the staff and in winter a coal fire.

 

[GlosRail]

Road legal electric tow trucks for pulling mail cages I think.

Tickets holes on the floor after your ticket had been hand punched with a hole.

A lot more locos, and sidings around stations.

Porters on stations waiting with parcels.

Compartment trains.

I use to travel in Kent in the late 80's and early 90's and I remember you couldn't walk between coaches. (Maybe a class 415?)

Metal luggage racks above seats.

 

[trainophile]

I bought a platform ticket at Manchester Oxford Road about three months ago !

I bet it wasn't 4d . (That's about 1.7p in "new money".)

 

[yorksrob]

I bet it wasn't 4d . (That's about 1.7p in "new money".)

It was twenty new pence.

That's inflation for you

 

[yorksrob]

I use to travel in Kent in the late 80's and early 90's and I remember you couldn't walk between coaches. (Maybe a class 415?)

Metal luggage racks above seats.

Or a 414 HAP unit

 

[Taunton]

Card sharps working long distance trains.

Small boy loco spotters.

Afternoon tea in the restaurant car (just time between Bristol and Taunton).

Watching the "changing the engine" procedures at close quarters (on the above service at Bristol, Peak off, Warship on).

Platform ticket machines.

Local newsagents all waiting in their cars (Triumph Herald estates seemed to be favourite) in the station approach at 05.45 every morning waiting for the newspaper train to come in.

Big piles of filled mailbags at platform ends, quite unattended, nothing ever happened to them.

Guards' whistles (admittedly heard rather than seen).

Racing pigeons being released by minor station staff.

Summer Saturday at Taunton.

 

[hawk1911]

Living in Weymouth in the 1980s, I remember/miss:

• the boat train down the Weymouth tramway
• the travelling post office, with passenger accommodation
• push-pull locomotives

 

[Parham Wood]

Porter's sack trucks for luggage. Those flat iron wheel trolleys on every platform. Boarded crossings at stations for staff to cross and for the trolleys as well. A step in the platform wall so staff could cross the tracks mid platform. I suppose some must be there now. Water cranes every some with braziers. All those cast metal signs like Do Not Tresspass etc etc .... 40 shillings fine...etc. AWS ramps. Goods sheds, wagon loading gauges. Cattle docks. Siphon Gs and I suppose all those goods wagons and vans that were around at that time. Loose coupled freight trains and the knocking and bumping as they stopped and started. The sound of shunting in the yards day in day out.

 

[neonison]

The odd van behind a dmu working.
Tablet of Palmolive soap in the lavatory (never toilet)
Milk machines, blue with 3 buttons, the third one orange or strawberry milk.
Oil tail lamps.

 

[Welshman]

The odd van behind a dmu working.

And a crewed station pilot to remove it quickly if the dmu reversed during its journey [eg at Bradford Exchange].

Leather straps to open the windows.

Luggage in advance - a truck collected your case the day before travel and delivered the day after arrival[if you were lucky!].

The rush for the front seats on the new-fangled dmus, and drivers who'd sometimes leave their door open and talk to you.

Trains too long for the platform - if there were many wishing to board or alight, it would draw-up. If not, you walked through the train. If you opened the door where there was no platform and fell on to the track, it was your own silly fault.

Machines on stations for printing your name on a metal strip.

Workman's Returns.

Cheaper weekend returns, encouraging you to travel out on a Friday night and return on a Sunday.

Reduced-rate tickets for children under ten travelling to help clean chimneys [almost!]

 

[PeterC]

All my nostalgic memories have already been covered I think. Funnily enough I never saw a crate of racing pigeons but regularly saw the empty crates being returned. I never saw day old chicks on the railway but I remember them being carried on Crossville buses, the boxes were just left on the roadside for collection by a connecting service. The ones that I saw were making their way from Cardiganshire to the north coast.

One thing other thing was being able to buy the next morning's paper at a London terminus before catching a late train home.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

The BR double arrow logo

Dim incandescent bulbs and compartments

Smoking carriages

"Proper" thickish cardboard tickets with "S" and "R" (single/return which the guard clipped as appropriate"

Uniform livery (e.g. BR blue for suburban stock and blue/grey for Inter City stock - with minor exceptions)

Cab rides

Traveller's Fare buffet

Sealink ships with a reversed BR double arrow logo

Young spotters with their notepads/pens and an Ian Allan ABC

 

[trash80]

The BR double arrow logo

Can't you see that at every station? And ticket?

 

[Darandio]

Indeed. Pretty sure you can see these too.

AWS ramps.

 

[PeterY]

I must be getting old.

BR used to have a Round Robin ticket. An example from Hemel Hemstead, a one way trip around the Cambian coast and back via Carisle. They also did Heart of Wales.

Persil, two for one offer. Traveled around a lot with my father with those.

Seats that matched windows.

Less frequent trains in general.

 

[30909]

A few more that may not have been covered: the goods yard shunter sprinting after a fly shunted cut of waggons to split it again with his pole, lean on the brake rod of the back cut and throw over the point leaver to set the road for the next shunt. These guys must have been fit even with their Woodbine clamped between their teeth!
Smell of hot "steam oil" another smell from my childhood was London Bridge terminus platforms always smelt of fish, boxes of fish going to Billingsgate. Taxi road across the concourse of Waterloo. Newspaper road vans on the platforms from 10 pm loading the trains.
On the Redhill Reading line (and obviously many more routes in the UK) a mid morning passenger train stopping at crossing keepers cottages to deliver churns of water, internal mail and a bucket or two of coal!

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Can't you see that at every station? And ticket?

Perhaps I should have said "on trains". The there-and-back double arrow logo was the "new" British Rail back in the 1960s. I think it only survives on stations etc as it is such a familiar icon.

Those over a certain age will remember the tickets I mentioned, similar to those issued by preserved lines. I remember most were pink and white but I vaguely remember green.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Guards' whistles (admittedly heard rather than seen).

Seem to be making a comeback - LM guards appear to have all been issued with them and most are using them too. Makes a lot of sense on stock where the hustle alarm sounds for an automatic energy saving door closure where it can be reopened, so you can differentiate between when you should reach for the open button and when you should stand back.

 

[yorksrob]

Perhaps I should have said "on trains". The there-and-back double arrow logo was the "new" British Rail back in the 1960s. I think it only survives on stations etc as it is such a familiar icon.

Those over a certain age will remember the tickets I mentioned, similar to those issued by preserved lines. I remember most were pink and white but I vaguely remember green.

I remember the pink ones in Kent.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have an oddly photographic memory of certain events, some fairly minor, when I was very young. One I do remember was of seeing some lads mucking about with an old Edmonson style ticket and trapping it in the doors of a Merseyrail unit, and flicking it back and forth for a bit.

 

[steamybrian]

A few not mentioned...

When you bought a ticket from A to B you could catch any train. (Today you would be restricted by catching only a certain companies train).
Less security. Happily take photographs without fear of being watched or questioned.
No mobile phones.
Edmondson card tickets were normally white for first class, green for second class, pink for off peak returns, yellow for day excursions and other colours such as red for special trains.


Ahhhhh- the good old days...!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Bletchleyite]

When you bought a ticket from A to B you could catch any train. (Today you would be restricted by catching only a certain companies train).

Funny, the one I bought today could be used on LM and Southern outside the Zones, and on anything I liked inside them.

 

[Bald Rick]

Train crashes, derailments and breakdown cranes.

 

[RPM]

BRUTEs on platforms - often used as a makeshift perch whilst spotting.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Train crashes, derailments and breakdown cranes.

You talking about the 1950's , or the Railtrack era ?

 

[Busaholic]

Peter Parker, Chris Green, Bob Reid and a few others who actually knew about running train services.

 

[pdeaves]

A public telephone in the train? (158s)

And HSTs! I remember using an entire phone card (20 units, I do believe) trying to wish my brother a happy birthday because he couldn't hear me over the general roar and clickety-clack, watching in horror as the available units disappeared before my eyes.

 

[xotGD]

A couple more:

'Merrymaker' excursions
Failed DMUs being loco-hauled in service.
No wires on the ECML.
Freight trains using the avoiding lines around Carlisle.
Bay platforms at Newcastle Central where there is now a car park with trains heading for the coast.
Not knowing what was going to turn up.

 

[trash80]

DMUs on the cross-city line

 

[Islineclear3_1]

BR attempting to run services during periods of heavy snow with whatever motive power could move

Whilst in the South East at least, it is easier to run nothing these days...