First rolling stock you can remember travelling on?

[Rail Blues]

For me it was the Class 116s on the Cross City Line in the early to mid 80s. They were getting on for 25 years old and looked and sounded their age. They also had a very distinctive smell which I couldn't put me finger on (possibly a mixture of damp and brake dust)

I loved the fact that if you sat in the front seat in the leading carriage, you could see into the cab and could pretend to be the driver. Something that was probably formative in shaping my interest in the railways.

That said when they were replaced by the 323s in the mid 90s it was like something from another planet. By comparison they looked and sounded almost futuristic.

 

[Clansman]

ScotRail 150.

 

[Pete_uk]

Whatever was doing the Cheltenham to Swindon services in the mid 80's. I know they swayed a bit and you could see out the front

 

[Ianno87]

Can't say it's definitely the first memory I have, but do remember riding a 304 through Stretford (so must've been 1991 or sooner).

 

[Polarbear]

Mine's a bit different from the norm - Tait stock that used to operate around Melbourne when I was a lot younger.

More information available on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tait_(train)

As for Britain, I can just about remember the ride on the boat train from Southampton Docks to Waterloo back in 1971 when I first arrived in the UK. That would have been Mk1's probably hauled by a class 73 or 74.

 

[class387]

D78 Stock.

First mainline stock was a hired 321 on c2c.

 

[100andthirty]

4-LAV or 4- SUB or 4 EPB, the trains that ran from Purley in the early 1950s, don't recall which.

 

[D365]

Class 365. But that wasn’t obvious was it...

 

[Agent_Squash]

ATW 175.

 

[cj_1985]

Class 303s, running in to glasgow central low level

 

[cambsy]

My earliest train might have been a HST or 50 hauled, probably Taunton to Plymouth, in either mk1 or mk2 if 50 hauled or a Flying Banana livery if HST, might have been about 8-10 traveling with parents, was train mad even then.

 

[sprinterguy]

Pacer - Unsure whether class 142 or 143, but possibly the former, the 143s were transferred away from the area fairly early in my childhood. I remember watching the sleepers of the adjacent running line flicker by with increasing rapidity through the full height glass of the bus doors, and the lingering smell of diesel exhaust that hung around my local station after the train had gone throbbing away down the line.

 

[dgl]

NSE 159 Crewkerne -> Honiton, got to go in the cab and toot the horn

 

[EM2]

1962 Tube stock.

First BR stock would be a 306 or 308 from Ilford.

 

[Dunnyrail]

Oerilicon sets on the Euston to Watford line circa 1952, but then I am an old git! These superb LNWR units were rplaced by the rather horrible BR units that became known as 501 or Prison Cars. The Oerilicons had somewhat similar seating arangements to the superb new units used on the London Overground by LUL these days, with the exception that some of the seats faced forwards thus meaning you did not get a stiff neck trying to look out of the window. Khan please note!

 

[xotGD]

DMU Newcastle to Whitley Bay - probably a 101

 

[Wivenswold]

London Transport - CO/CP stock.
British Rail - Either a Class 302 or 308.

 

[jonesy3001]

class 303/304 on the glossop/hadfield line when i lived near flowery field, class 101/108 from hyde north.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Mk1, diesel hauled, Swansea-Newcastle mid 1960s

 

[brel york]

Vep unit from Victoria to Gatwick airport , roughly 1977

 

[billh]

class 303/304 on the glossop/hadfield line when i lived near flowery field, class 101/108 from hyde north.

I can trump that on the same route with nearly new Hadfield DC emu's that later became class 506 and sometimes ex LNER Gresley teak stock hauled by an EM2(class77) to Manchester London Road. Got to cab no 27000 at L.R. before it was named Electra.in those days there was no Flowery Field or Hattersley stations.Yep,I am THAT old.

 

[jj1314]

I grew up in Penzance and one of my earliest memories is travelling to Paddington, probably 1990/1. For some reason, I've got it in my head this might have been in a Mk2 rake hauled by a Class 47. Did these run to Paddington/Waterloo?

Given the nostalgia here, does anyone have video/photos of the interior of an Intercity mk2?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

One of my earliest memories is from when I was about 3, and being at Huddersfield station with my parents and older brother waiting for our train to the seaside at Scarborough. The image of the locomotive (which I now know was a class 45 or 46) coming out of the tunnel and into platform 8 is as clear as day- which was probably, with hindsight, the first sign that I'd grow up with the social stigma of being an enthusiast!

Of course, I technically didn't ride IN said Peak, just behind it in what will have been mk1s or early mk2s!

 

[brel york]

I grew up in Penzance and one of my earliest memories is travelling to Paddington, probably 1990/1. For some reason, I've got it in my head this might have been in a Mk2 rake hauled by a Class 47. Did these run to Paddington/Waterloo?

Given the nostalgia here, does anyone have video/photos of the interior of an Intercity mk2?

Early mk 2

 

[Welshman]

Oerilicon sets on the Euston to Watford line circa 1952, but then I am an old git! These superb LNWR units were rplaced by the rather horrible BR units that became known as 501 or Prison Cars. The Oerilicons had somewhat similar seating arangements to the superb new units used on the London Overground by LUL these days, with the exception that some of the seats faced forwards thus meaning you did not get a stiff neck trying to look out of the window. Khan please note!

You're not an old git but a stable, well-matured, responsible member of society like me!

I can just remember the ex LMS non-corridor coaches in the Calder Valley in the 1950s. Sitting in short trousers on prickly horse-hair seats with knees touching the person opposite as the Fairburn tank chugged from one station to the next, and letting the window down with a leather strap to lean out to open the door when you reached your destination. Arriving feeling grubbier than when you set off.
The now extinct diesel units [101s and Derby Lightweights], clean and spacious and with excellent views[especially through the front and rear] seemed such an advance in travel standards on introduction!

 

[Eagle i-Thrust]

Either Class 303/304 or 305 on the Hadfield line, was too young to remeber which exactly.

 

[nlogax]

Mk1 sleeper..

 

[brel york]

A lot of the misters I worked with as an apprentice remembered working on the rapist trains , Mk1 non corridor stock out of kings x
One of the instructors could remember repairing Tyneside electric stock , not only the epb units but the ex lner units

 

[yorksrob]

Unrefurbished CEP from Charing Cross to Ashford in about 1982 (and some sort of 1st Gen DMU from Yarmouth to Liverpool Street).

The trip back from Pontins holiday camp

 

[brel york]

Mk1 sleepers were full of blue asbestos