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What train encapulates your childhood?

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Sad Sprinter

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Bit of a whimsical thread, but do you have a train that takes you back to being 8 or 9 years old on the station platform again? For me, its an NSE livered class 455/1-ambling miserably through South London.
 
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Bletchleyite

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A Merseyrail 507/508 in blue and grey, I guess. Or a bit later, lots of Sprinters and Pacers. I used to love going on a 150 as a kid because I could pretend to be the guard with the door controls :)
 

306024

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The clue is in the user name.

Class 306 EMUs on the Liverpool St - Shenfield line. Had my favourite seat in the motor coach and was always disappointed if someone else got there first. 024 was the last one to get underlined in my spotters book. Coincidentally 303 024 was the last Glasgow EMU I required to see before retiring from spotting.
 

Iskra

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Intercity 225 sets, as these were seen as the train of the future when I was born and in my childhood and it is one of the first train sets I had. Possibly Eurostar too, I still find it amusing that my first ride on such an exotic seeming train was Leeds-Doncaster.

As I got a little older and started getting out onto the rails it would be classes 156/158 and 144’s plus 47/86/87/90 in Virgin Red or MML/Virgin/GNER HST’s and EWS freight locos.
 

NorthWestRover

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Class 115 Derby 4-car DMUs​

Before I began spotting at age 10, I'd watched the trains passing through Padgate station from the road bridge over the railway.
 

wheeltapper49

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1006 County of Cornwall was a regular at Truro in late 50's early 60's. As an aside though scrapped at Sharpness it's chimney was salvaged and is to be used on the new build 1014 at Didcot apparently
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PaulJ

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I suppose a 4CEP in blue/grey on a trip from Ramsgate to London via Canterbury. We’d sit in a compartment amid a fog of fag smoke, bouncing up and down on the seats and watching the swooping telegraph wires.
 

55002

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I started when the Deltics were on way out, so have to say the 125 even though I hated them at the time. 47s I guess were the other option on the night trains and freightliners on the ECML on the 80s
 

Master Cutler

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My fondest memories were standing on the footbridge over Prestatyn station with my brother back in the 1960s waiting for The Irish Mail to thunder through.
In those days we saw a variety of locomotives working the service including Coronations an Britannias.
If "The Mail" was running late word was they used to make up time on the North Wales section.
 

Trackman

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First gen DMU's/EMUs
Loco wise, dirty green class 40s with D numbers.
Today wise, If I see a Plasser Tamper (albeit a new one) that takes me back. As a kid I was intrigued by their looks and wondered what they did.
 

Sad Sprinter

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Intercity 225 sets, as these were seen as the train of the future when I was born and in my childhood and it is one of the first train sets I had. Possibly Eurostar too, I still find it amusing that my first ride on such an exotic seeming train was Leeds-Doncaster.

As I got a little older and started getting out onto the rails it would be classes 156/158 and 144’s plus 47/86/87/90 in Virgin Red or MML/Virgin/GNER HST’s and EWS freight locos.

I know what you mean, even in the late 90s when I was still very small I remember the 225s (and Networkers!) being the future.
 

hexagon789

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A 156 in SPT carmine and cream, it's the first train and livery I can properly remember, others I couldn't swear to remembering from then or from looking at photos more recently
 

61653 HTAFC

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141s and 110s were the most common in my early childhood, with an assortment of other first generation units also included. This later became 142s and 144s along with assorted Sprinters.
 

Richard Scott

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As a young child 45/46s on Mark 1/2 stock on cross country trains. Once got into the hobby 50s on air con mark 2s
 

Gloster

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A 4-EPB with 42 on the front. I was so pleased when I grew tall enough for my legs to reach the the floor and I could sit comfortably on the bouncy seats, rather than rocking about like a small child, which I, at the grand old age of eight, considered myself no longer to be.
 

yorksrob

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I suppose at that age (8-9 years and before) it would have been an unrefurbished VEP taking me to visit my gran in Tonbridge.
 

marsker

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The North Tyneside electrics, used for days out at the seaside and later for travel to and from School. Makes me shudder now, to think of the non - interlocked sliding doors and trains running at line speed with them wide open on a hot day!
 
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My fondest memories were standing on the footbridge over Prestatyn station with my brother back in the 1960s waiting for The Irish Mail to thunder through.
In those days we saw a variety of locomotives working the service including Coronations an Britannias.
If "The Mail" was running late word was they used to make up time on the North Wales section.
It's the Irish Mail or one of its reliefs for me to. Standing at Euston or Holyhead en route or retuning from a summer spent in Ireland back in the late 50s and early 60s. First the excitement of steam and then the introduction of modern electrics and the replacement of clickity clack with the smooth running of welded rail.
 

ian1944

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Green 1500VDC EMUs between Altrincham and Manchester London Road, as was, in the 50s and 60s, Comfortable and reliable, though I still remember the time I trapped a thumb in a compartment door.
 

satisnek

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I suppose at that age (8-9 years and before) it would have been an unrefurbished VEP taking me to visit my gran in Tonbridge.
Essentially the same here, except for the nature of the journey (my grandparents lived a mile up the road). CIG/BIG/VEP stock in blue/grey livery with blue/green checkered upholstery and lightbulbs plugged into the ceiling. Long gone.
 

Steddenm

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Regional Railways liveried class 158 between Nuneaton and Birmingham at one of the cab ends where you could smoke with the little ashtrays that pulled out from between the seats.
 

yorksrob

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Essentially the same here, except for the nature of the journey (my grandparents lived a mile up the road). CIG/BIG/VEP stock in blue/grey livery with blue/green checkered upholstery and lightbulbs plugged into the ceiling. Long gone.

Yes, that description exactly.

We must have always got the stopper because I don't recall getting a CEP until later on for those journeys.
 

32475

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Aged 8/9 for me it was the 4-LAV sets going to school on the Brighton main line between Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath. I had to be shown how to lower the leather strap on the window in order to open the door. All blue livery, smoky, dusty, dirty. Wonderful!
 
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