How did you get interested in railways?

[Bittern]

I never saw 37s back then. I still don't now.

 

[313103]

HOW DID I GET INTERESTED IN RAILWAYS?

A very good question, with me i suppose it started when i was about 2, when my parents took me to my Grandathers house near the River Lea, i spent hours looking out the window watching the trains coming and going to Liverpool Street, i us to like watching the express trains which at that time had Class 37 and Class 31s. (yeah i know showing my age now). The electric units which i think were the 305s, 307s, and 308s. When i was about 3 we moved to a house whose garden backed onto the Noth London Line, so spent many a hour down at the garden watching the trains in then BR green mixed with the then new BR Blue.
As i got older i use to spend virtually all day at my other Grand parents house who lived near Northumberland Park, got sunburnt many a time.
We moved when i was about 8 to Holloway and our flat overlooked the ECML, i can still hear the roar of the Deltics now.
I then lost interest in the rails and was more into travelling around London on Red Bus Rovers.
It was when my Dad then said just before i left school to go down the careers office, i went down and nothing was doing untill they asked my father what i liked and said 'Trains' and Football (was never going to one of them) and the woman came back and said this has just came in 'Traction Trainee at St Pancras Station'
Suffice to say i got the job and my interest in trains came back, during my time at St Pancras i got to drive probably (biased though) one of British Rails Mr reliable the Class 45. I enjoyed the job until the start of the break up of British Rail, everything i liked was being withdrawn, the job appeared to be in state of being rundown, industrial relations were at an all time low, thatcher was in power and i felt like a lost generation. My lowest point came in 1993 when i was made surplus to requirements at Marylebone, i had to move on, so i ended up at Willesden and my life had turned full circle as i now past the house that i use to spot the trains from when i was a small boy.
I am now going through my third major transition, i was at St Pancras for the changing of the Guard there, i was at Marylebone to see the ugly duckling become the beautiful swan and now i am at Willesden and seeing the massive changes being made to the North London Line.
My interest in railways is now from a purely historical point, i dont like what is out there today, for me it is very much a muchness now, but i dont stop others from doing it and will engage with them when i see them. My other interest in railways revolves around me being a trade union representative. My main interest is in the picture you see as my avatar, this my baby and so i spend a lot of time with her.

Sorry that this is so long, but i hope you enjoyed what i had to say.

 

[ChrisMcFall]

Sounds weird, but it was when i in a relationship with someone about this time next year.
I would have had to travel a lot on the train to see them, so I was doing regular journeys from COV to LGG.
I would have passed through new street a lot, saw a lot of different trains, taken(what i thought at the time) was a bit of a silly way to get to Birmingham during last summers Sundays.
(COV>LMS>BMO)

Sitting on a train so much, looking out of the window, the experience, and also the general feeling of how rail can bring people together so easily sparked my interest in the railways.

 

[SouthEastern-465]

I'm only 14, and got interested in railways at the age of 3, my story is, I was standing waiting for a Charing X train with family, when at speed a 4CIG passed at speed the noise and traction give me great excitement, then my first 'Networker' the Cl365 (when still on the SE) after I took to the Cl465 and still today the class Cl465 is still my favorite, but I think I should thank the 4CIG for geting me into railways altogether!

 

[CCF23]

In my case i started to love watching Thomas the tank engine when i was like 2. I loved going to the Bluebell railway to see Stepney and the LT museum. I also knew most about everything nearly on the tube map when i was about 5. I also got my first Hornby set when i was 5 sadly i didn't get it working until i was about ten . although i always knew about and liked trains not until last year when i was 13 did i start to take a real interest like starting to know trains name s and classes. A few months later i started taking pictures with my 6MP Digital Camera and at Christmas i got my DSLR. And that's my story.

 

[Bittern]

Sounds weird, but it was when i in a relationship with someone about this time next year.

So, did you take the express from the future or the one that stops at every station?

 

[ChrisMcFall]

So, did you take the express from the future or the one that stops at every station?

I meant last year of course

 

[Bittern]

Aww, I was hoping you could tell me how long the express takes

 

[Buffer68]

I guess my interest in railways started when I was about 10 when I was given all my Dads' Triang model railway - I still have it all some thirty years later. Also when I visited my Nan, we used to catch trains to other towns; Haslemere station is very nice from what I can remember.

 

[D1001]

When I was at primary school, I could see the London-Bristol line from the playground (only in the distance) and saw Western's, Warship's and Hymek's going past day in day out. I clearly remember seeing the APT-E on test and the original HST set too.

My mum used to take me down to the disused station and I would watch the trains going by - I remember seeing one of the original named 47's, possibly Atlas, and having an urge to see more of these wandering machines. Then of course I saw my first Western up close (D1001, if you haven't already guessed) and I was hooked! Happy days!

 

[The_Stig]

I am not sure to be honest. I used to live near Newton train station and so seeing the numerous trains passing daily interested me no end. Also the fact I got a train set when I was quite young may have helped the process!

My young sons are also developing the interest in trains nicely, although the missus does moan about that!

 

[generalvegitable]

I got into trains when I was one, My Dad showed me a Thomas the Tank Engine video (this was like 1994 or 1995 so they were still doing it properly without CGI effects) and it snowballed ever since then, and now he is the one complaining about how expensive the whole thing is!

 

[OMGitsDAVE]

I was also about the age of 1 when I got interested. Back in 1994, when Thomas the Tank & Barney were my life. Aha!

I used to watch Thomas the Tank time after time, until my dad finally took me down to Darlington - and I was there for many an hour. I used to just sit there, clapping and waving when a train came in. Now, I go to Hartlepool to see the GC's, Newcastle to see 91's etc and HSTs. Good times, eh?

 

[Ilove165's]

I've always had an intrest in trains, which I got from my dad (he used to spend most summer Saturdays at Doncaster, with the occasional trip elsewhere), but I wouldn't go and stand at the end of a platform because I thought it was uncool...

But it wasn't until 2006 when we moved to Ruislip, that my intrest really got going when we went to Headstone Lane on the WCML, and I guess it was all those Pendos whizzing by that got me hooked

 

[TGVDUDE]

i have always been interested in the railways and it's trains, but when i was 4, and i saw the Eurostar in the paper, and saw that it went to other countries i was amazed and it had grown from there! my great grandaddy drove 4472 'Flying Scotsman' i have been told!

 

[yorksrob]

I always used to like travelling on trains to visit my gran in Tonbridge, but I guess when I really got the bug it must have been around the late 80's when I used to travel out on the South coast from Ashford to Hastings in a thumper, then on towards Brighton usually by GIG. Learning about the vast network of disused branches and closed secondary routes heightened my fascination (in particular the Lydd/New Romney branch).

It helped that Ashford library had an entire room dedicated to railways - well stocked with Middleton Press's albums which gave a lot of the historical background.

 

[krus_aragon]

When I was a young lad on Anglesey I didn't have much experience of mainline railways. Our family did a good job of touring the little trains of Wales, (I can recall travelling on the Ffestiniog, Snowdon, Llanberis, Bala, and Rheidiol) but never made use of mainline trains: if my dad was going to drive as far as Bangor, he'd keep driving to Llandudno or even Chester rather than stop to catch a train. When driving along the A55, my brother and I would identify any DMUs we saw on the line between Bangor and Conwy as "Annie and Clarabel looking for Thomas" - I don't remember seeing any Intercity services. The only mainline train I can remember going on as a youngster was a special passenger working on the Amlwch branch line in 1992. In the late 1990s I wandered along the line as a teenager: saplings growing between the tracks gave me faith that no trains would hurtle past: freight workings had ended in 1993.

When I lived down in Cardiff for a year, I baulked at the prices charged for parking cars in the city centre. Free park and ride facilities, followed by a twenty minute journey in a Pacer, was far better, and cheaper! That's when I started getting involved with railways, as a passenger. From there I started to wonder about the Amlwch line, on which I'd been told my grandmother travelled to school. Reading about and researching the branch's history led to everything else.

 

[JustinStacey.x]

I guess I've always had a lingering interest in the railways my whole life. I've always been into buses, and have enjoyed noting how our fleet has evolved gradually from Darts to the new VDL and Enviro Buses, with some modern Darts - horrible things. Funnily enough one of the 90s Darts has mysteriously returned here and I managed to get a few good photos of it.

Anyway... my interest in railways only really became properly apparent about a year ago. After moving to the city I'd gotten fairly familiar with the trains and had begun to notice patterns, i.e., 314s always did the Cathcart line (with the rare once in a blue moon exception of 318s or 334s), 334s and 318s did the Inverclyde line a lot, and the DMUs often did Kilmarnock and East Kilbride ways. It then made me wonder, why? So I went on Google and learned about the classes of train and then the interest just blossomed from there. That was a year ago now and since then I've done a lot of the SPT stations, been up to Inverness, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, gotten pictures and videos of pretty much every train in Scotland and some in London during my recent business trip there.

One thing that particular used to make me curious was the sound of sprinters and why they'd revv up before departing as opposed to the EMUs just drifting off.

The one thing that annoys me about the railfan community (rather like the communities of Urban Explorers that I.. ahem... know of) is that there are always some who like to cause a ruccus, and practically wage war against their fellow trainspotters. One only has to browse Youtube trainspotting videos for ten minutes to realise this. I have also found that some railfans can be extremely rude if you don't know exactly what you are talking about.

 

[cawky22]

I got my interest off my Granda , he was a train driver for 46 years, he used to drive the 9 fs up to Consett from Tyne Dock on the Tyne,now they are bringing Russian coal in to the port and taking it out up the same incline.He finished up on the top link driving HSTs to london and Edinburgh from Newcastle.He was there when the route was electrofied but never drove them,he is on this video driving a 31 at 5 minutes and 6 seconds:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfPoG8I5HBw
and this is a class 66 going up the incline out of Tyne Dock:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TchlO6uW4Wo
and this is my video taken from a jet ski on Sunday the 10 th of August at 1900, the dock gates to Tyne Dock are only open for a hour either side of high water, high water was at 1830, the dock officially closed at midnight that night, so I was probably the last person to go into Tyne Dock before it officially closed to shipping:-

here is a view of Tyne Dock:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2OmRhMU-s4

You can see the coal unloading berth and the coal stock piles, sorry for going off topic , but I thought it might be of an interest to you guys.

Brian

PS my Grandas name was Stann Ramm from South Shields.

here is a map of Tyne Dock:-

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?t=h&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF8&ll=54.982157,-1.454943&spn=0.006858,0.022638&z=16

 

[Drsatan]

I became interested in railways when I was about 2-3 years old. Then, I lived in Porchester, a suburb of Portsmouth, and my mum would often take me to Eastleigh to watch the trains. This was in the early 1990s when Network SouthEast still existed. I remember being quite excited after seeing an HST speed through on the fast lines through Eastleigh

 

[me123]

Anyway... my interest in railways only really became properly apparent about a year ago. After moving to the city I'd gotten fairly familiar with the trains and had begun to notice patterns, i.e., 314s always did the Cathcart line (with the rare once in a blue moon exception of 318s or 334s), 334s and 318s did the Inverclyde line a lot, and the DMUs often did Kilmarnock and East Kilbride ways. It then made me wonder, why? So I went on Google and learned about the classes of train and then the interest just blossomed from there. That was a year ago now and since then I've done a lot of the SPT stations, been up to Inverness, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, gotten pictures and videos of pretty much every train in Scotland and some in London during my recent business trip there.

That's very similar to my experience. I wanted to know why I always got the rubbish (personal opinion!) 320s whilst my friends could commute in style on 334s and 318s. That got me into the whole 320s via Argyle thing, which was a good launch into railways!

 

[monkey]

...wouldn't have said I was really into railwasy until I did this project. but I've done a lot of travelling on trains between leeds and edinburgh, and have to say have enjoyed my journeys, and picked up things about the railways which I guess does reveal some geeky interest. plus I enjoyed the project so much, so yeah I guess I am into the railways, especially clichéd as it sounds the "age of the railways" nostalgia of it too, and probs more from a passenger experience and to alesser extent engineering perspective. I'd never go trainspotting though (althogh without them you wouldn't get the nice pics, that I can so easily look up online), not for me, but I am very interested in things that it involves such as rolling stock, routes etc...

 

[JustinStacey.x]

How do you define a trainspotter these days?

I never write down the number of the trains but I take pictures and videos and say in the video what train it is.

 

[monkey]

^^erm I guess someone who goes out withe intention of "spotting" a particular train (be it by photography, notebook or video) lol.. I don't not do it cos its not cool or whatever, just doesn't float my boat...

 

[Bittern]

You don't need a camera to go out trainspotting. You just have to have the intention of and actually watching the trains. I rarely take my camera. It doesn't need to be a particular train either. I don't go out with the intention of spotting 314212, but I always hope to see 390 022. Always.

Hell, I rarely go out of my way to spot at all anymore. Maybe if I'm at Glasgow Central with time to kill, but even then, I usually go for lunch or just go wait for my train.

The only trains I bother going out of my way to see are Pendolinos. If I'm walking near Queen Street, I'll pop down and maybe get on the Anniesland service, but that's about it these days.

It's not because it's "not cool". If people ever had a problem with me doing it, then the problem lies with them, not me. If you want to do it, do it. It's your life, after all, and it's only "not cool", if it'a "not cool" to you. Look at me, a Power Rangers fan. It's "not cool" to most people out there, but it's cool to me. I don't go out of my way to make people see it, nor do I to hide it. Same with my love for trains and if ever be, trainspotting.

It's also only a "geeky interest" f you think of it as one. Who is anyone to tell you that your interest is "geeky"?

 

[Lower Quadrant]

Castles,Kings,Counties,Hall,Granges..all within ten minutes of our house.Smitten at 12,retired early in 2006,after 48 years nipper and wrinkly working on the job.Lifelong interest,before ews took over.Game over.

 

[350232]

Hi

My dad took me to various stations when I was young. Whilst I wasn't hooked initially, the hobby soon grew on me. Initially I collected numbers, buying all the locomotive and rolling stock books etc and I was determined to see all the locos, pencilling them off as I went along . It's only recently with Youtube and so forth have I ventured into the photographing and videoing side of the hobby, and having grown up largely with the privatised railway, I have only recently too become interested in the 1980s railway scene. I'm also a very keen MSTS simmer, so its a chance to recreate those long dead scenes and venture into my childhood memories of Sectorisation and the BR Blue days.

Cheers.

 

[poshbakerloo]

I guess for me it was living in London. When I was 2-4 years old my dad used to take to watch the District Line trains which ran near our home in Kensington. I would look down on them in the cutting they ran thru and used to love it! and I still do haha

 

[Crossforth]

I think the thing that started me off was my Grandad (RIP).
He never had anything to do with the railways but every time I would go and stay with him, and Grandma, they would always take me to the SVR, and I would have been between 2 and 6.
They then moved round the corner from us, in Leeds, so that was the end of the SVR.
But also I had a Hornby Thomas from a very young age and I still have Annie and Clarabel (even though they have been re-painted).
When I was about 7, my uncle died and I inherited most of his old railway items and then my layout was born. My interest grew when I received a Virgin Voyager for Christmas when I was about 10 and then I saw a real one and my love grew from there. Although I didn't really start taking numbers and pictures till just after the franchise reshuffle in Nov 07 (why did I never go out before then?) but I did ocasionally took a few pictures here and there. Eg: just by chance, we went to Great Yarmouth on holiday and the only picture I took in Great Yarmouth was of 47714 in Anglia livery and I also have a pic of a UID 222/1 at Grantham (I CAN'T I.D. IT ).
Now with a 12Mp camera, I take pics all the time and my list of numbers is ever growing in many different liveries.
I also, recently, started trying to model certain train such as my NXEC HST which is nearly finished.

Anyway, that's my story. I could go on for hours but I won't.

 

[Lonewolf]

My story is fairly simple.
me and my family moved in where we are now in 1987 when i was 3 and the backgarden backs onto the line between weston super mare and bristol
when i say "backs onto" get your eyes on this

since then i've loved trains and anything that goes fast