First rolling stock you can remember travelling on?

[Ash Bridge]

For me it would be class 104 DMUs travelling from Stockport Edgeley to visit relatives in Macclesfield a few years before electrification of the Stoke Line. I can distinctly remember the (from a childs point of view) very high backed seats, and in the winter the absolutely overpowering heating that hit you when first boarding!I imagine the class 304 EMUs must have been a close second choice.

 

[jh64]

The earliest one that's still clearest is from the early/mid 1990s, getting on a doubled-up class 158 with my mam back from Leeds to Newcastle, and looking out the window later on the journey and becoming very distressed that the rear two coaches had vanished!

 

[jonesy3001]

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.

The station just opened when i moved to the area

 

[Bessie]

Earliest one would be a 4-CIG or 4-VEP going from Burgess Hill to Victoria in mid 70's. Stand out journeys include having a class 117 DMU cab ride on Reading to Gatwick Airport plus class 33 hauled Brighton to Bath Spa with mk1 stock and having my head out the window on numerous occasions!

 

[AC47461]

302/306/307/308 on Southend Vic line. Most likely 307 as they were almost permanently confined to that route. I definitely remember going on a 306 as a boy, but they were the only units that had gone by the time I started commuting in '86. Earliest loco hauled memory is Westerns on the sleeper down to Penzance, definitely an adventure for a 5 year old

 

[northwichcat]

I think my first ever train journey was on the heritage Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway. No idea what type of train it would have been, other than it was a steam train.

 

[Julia]

cl. 310, which were pretty new at the time, at the bottom end of the WCML. Especially as you could stand up on the seat (well, you could at my age then!) and see out the front of the DTS if the driver had obligingly left the blinds up. Around the same time I could also get away with standing on the rear-facing bench seat watching out the front of United Counties' Bristol FSs ...

 

[mushroomchow]

I have very, very vague memories of travelling on some Network Southeast stock in the mid 1990s from (I assume) Poole to Wareham to visit the Swanage Railway. I must have only been maybe 3 years old at a push. Still have a photograph of tiny me on the stock with my ticket, which is clearly Mk. 1 or old Mk. 2 outline stock with the big windows - I thought the route was already in the hands of 442s at that point, but maybe it was a drag or a summer loco-hauled service?

Other than that, no memories pre-privatisation. Have to go to a trip down to London on a HST in 1997 for my first real memories - I remember being bought a crap kid's mealbox from the buffet car and playing a boardgame on one of the tables, which it was etched into for passengers, but my only actual memory of the visit to London itself is visiting the McDonalds just down the road from St. Pancras for some reason.

It just about pre-dates a trip to Sheffield to ride the trams on another HST, with similar consequences. Since I was obsessed with trains and anything that ran on rails, it was an easy and cheap way for Dad to take me somewhere and keep me quiet without having to do anything particularly taxing - I'd just have my face glued to the window and he could take a nap. I wouldn't actually be surprised if that trip to McDonalds was literally all we actually did in London.

Coincidentally, that Sheffield trip was most memorable for the train actually missing its stop at Loughborough, slamming on the emergency brake and having to turn back, which caused considerable delay! I thought this was a far-fetched story I had imagined as a child, but my father has confirmed that this actually happened! It can't have been that far-fetched, since a similar thing happened at the same station in 2014.

Most of those early memories revolve around my excitement at spotting, and then riding on, a "Virgin Train", which again was a HST, to Didcot in this case to visit the museum there. For some reason most of my early on-board memories seem to centre on the buffet car provisions - in that case, being baffled and amazed at the existence of Virgin Cola.

You can see where my love for the HSTs stems from - every one of my formative rail trips which I can actually remember took place on one.

 

[a_c_skinner]

Mk1s and a BR standard tank I think in the mid-late 1960s. Nottingham to Stanton Gate and Trowell.

 

[Bantamzen]

For me it would have probably been a 104 between Accrington & Blackburn in around 1973. I can remember reading a copy of one of the Thomas The Tank Engine books, and eating a packet of salt and vinegar crisps (I think they might have been Smiths Crisps). Even today the taste of S&V evokes this memory!!

 

[MatthewRead]

D78 stock for me but the first British Rail was the class 313

 

[broadgage]

Mid 1960s, slam door DC emus into Waterloo, probably SUB units, but might have been EPBs.
The odd family holiday by steam hauled MK1s
Watching old steamers assisting EMUs up an incline when they failed to collect current due to ice on conductor rail.

 

[Domh245]

The first mainline stock would have been around the millenium on an SWT 455, but I think I'd travelled on a D78 before then.

 

[swt_passenger]

Something steam hauled between Alnwick and Newcastle, around about 1962. Haven't a clue what it would be.

 

[bigbadhenry]

For me it would be class 104 DMUs travelling from Stockport Edgeley to visit relatives in Macclesfield a few years before electrification of the Stoke Line. I can distinctly remember the (from a childs point of view) very high backed seats, and in the winter the absolutely overpowering heating that hit you when first boarding!I imagine the class 304 EMUs must have been a close second choice.

Black Five Llandudno to Chester 1954. No idea what the coaches where, Ideas ??

 

[Bletchleyite]

Merseyrail 50x, though I have a quite early memory of riding heritage DMUs including non-corridor ones around the North West too.

 

[AJM580]

Loco hauled Norwich to Liverpool Street 1973 with either 31 or 37, then 4 SUBs to Twickenham.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

2 Hap to Margate or Ashford (can just remember semaphores at north end of AF!) and either 2 Hap or 4 Cep bunking to and from London. For a short time when we moved, watching 2 Haps out of my bedroom window and drawin/colouring in a big picture of the front end and sellotaping it to my wall

 

[palmersears]

Apparently my first journey was to Buxton in the early 90s, so probably a 150.

That said I can't remember it personally, so technically it'd be the 323s in the late 90s when they still did Hazel Grove to Piccadilly at weekends. Remeber going for a boys day out with my dad and brother on many a Saturday to give my mum a bit of peace and quiet!

 

[Mikey C]

EPBs out of Dartford in the mid 70s. Not a lot of variety from there

 

[gg1]

A HST from Brum to York in the early 80s with my dad on a visit to the NRM. We travelled from Dudley Port but don't know the class of unit, most likely a 304 or 310.

 

[ginge8991]

Class 303s. Remember when they would break down the odd time at Dumbarton Central and having to wait for the 320 coming from Helensburgh.

 

[SEClass375]

Don't I look a bit out of place here if I said the first train I remember would be a Class 375 travelling to London form High Brooms in the early 00s

 

[coppercapped]

What I now know to be Maunsell coaches hauled by an N1 between Guildford and Reading in the very early 1950s and getting a cinder in my eye...

 

[michael74]

Merseyrail class 503

 

[AM9]

As a child in the '50s I probably first went on the Central Line in 'standard' stock, built in the '20s with switchgear behind the driving cabs. They were loud but (for their day) rapid and well ventilated.
As for Mainline trains, it would have been the LNER/BR 3-car EMUs that always went round as 3x3-cars serving stations from Shenfield to Liverpool St.. In those days, they were 1500VDC but were the most advanced suburban trains on BR with their sliding doors and generous bodies. Around 1960, they were converted to ac units to be classifies as AM6 (later class 306). They served until the early '80s when the 315s were introduced.

 

[47802]

I would be a first Generation DMU which class I do not know as I was only about 5 years old a the time, My mother tuck me on a trip to Bradford from Cleckheaton not long before the line closed to Passenger Services.

 

[Bromley boy]

Class 415/1, 4EPB. On a route I now sign .

 

[156443]

142’s during the late 80’s/early 90’s can’t remember which year exactly, all I can vaguely remember the brown & white livery they had at the time.

 

[Master29]

class 305/1 s from James St to Higham's Park Chingford.