My paternal grandparents lived and farmed overlooking the West Coast Main Line between Lockerbie and Gretna....and up until 1967, I spent half of my school holidays there. My maternal grandparents lived until 1962 in a house in the Western outskirts of Stockton-on-Tees with an endless procession of loaded and empty coal trains clanking past the end of the street on the Castle Eden branch, hauled mainly by J25s and J27s. From 1962 they lived overlooking the Leeds Northern line between Eaglescliffe and Yarm, where I spent the other half of my school holidays enjoying a seemingly equally endless procession of coal, steel, chemical and fitted general freight trains, hauled by Q6s, J27s, B1s, B16s and V2s....which were gradually superseded by diesels of what would become classes 17, 24, 25, 27, 31, 37, 40, 46 and 47. Local passenger services had already gone over to DMUs in the late 1950s and the few remaining long distance passenger trains via the Durham coast where mainly hauled by class 40 or 46 diesels, although some of the Summer Saturday holiday trains to/from Scarborough, Filey and Yarmouth - plus the Coast sleeper to/from Kings Cross - remained steam-hauled well into the 'sixties, with A3s, V2s, B1s and B16s making regular appearances. Deltics and 47s also appeared from time-to-time on Sunday engineering diversions,
When I was staying with Dad's parents in Dumfriesshire, my grandfather usually drove - with me - into Carlisle on a Saturday morning to buy animal feed and other agricultural stuff from West Cumberland Farmers and after business had been concluded, if there was time before we had to return for lunch, we would buy platform tickets and spend an hour or so on Carlisle station watching the Duchesses, Princesses, Scots, Jubilees, Black Fives, Jinty station pilots....plus B1s, V2s and A3s off the Waverley Route. On a still night, staying at the farm, I could hear a heavy steam-hauled freight leaving Kingmoor Yard and I would become increasingly excited as it became nearer and nearer and louder and louder, until I would sit up in bed and pull back the curtain to witness the awesome crescendo and spectacle of one - or sometimes two - steam locos churning past in the darkness throwing out sparks from their chimney(s) and the huge orange glow from their firebox(es) illuminating the faces of the hard-working fireman(men) and the concentrating driver(s).
The Rev. W. Awdry books also featured largely in my childhood and my grandfather bought me my first Ian Allan combined volume in 1961 - when I was four and a half - and although I didn't actually start spotting until about 1966 - I pretty soon learned off by heart the names and numbers of the principal ex-LMS express passenger locos....plus the Britannias and Clans (cf. the Autism thread!). In 1966 we moved to a house adjacent to the West Highland Line a couple of miles North of Helensburgh, where I became fascinated by the enigmatic - but not always reliable - North British class 29 diesels and the then less common 20s, 24s, 25s and 27s. Secondary school afforded a good view of trains on the WHL just North of Craigendoran and led to regular weekend visits - with or without permits - to depots such as Eastfield, Polmadie, Motherwell, Haymarket, Grangemouth, Dundee, Ayr....and occasionally Inverness and Aberdeen Ferryhill on Freedom of Scotland tickets - not forgetting St Rollox Works.
A family move to Hampshire in 1973 introduced me to the delights of the Southern Region and eventually the start of my railway career....but that's for another thread!
