Interest in the Railways - where did it start?

[ac6000cw]

My interest started in the early 1970s when I decided to have a look at the 'prototype railway' to get ideas for turning my 'train sets' into more of model railway.

I took the bus to Rowley Regis station, which back then had an ex-GWR signalbox, semaphore signals, oil and gas terminals, Mk1 DMUs, 47s and Peaks on the oil & gas trains. A few more visits to the other nearby stations and I was hooked...

I lost all interest in the model railway side of things - the real thing was much better

 

[Springs Branch]

As a youngster during the 1960s, in the summer school holidays I usually went to stay with an uncle and aunt who had a house about half-a-mile across open fields from the railway line between Lostock Jn and Horwich. Most nights at bedtime, the routine was I would sit by the dining room window to watch the "Boat Train" passing, then off to bed with no further arguments. This was the Manchester Victoria - Heysham Belfast Boat Express, which became one of the last steam-hauled passenger expresses on BR.

I didn't know much about railways, but seeing that train each day in the summer twilight, steaming hard uphill from Lostock Jn, followed by its train of warmly-lit carriages made an impression which must have primed my interest.

Some years later, following the death of my grandmother my parents and grandfather took me along on their regular visits to her grave. The cemetery happened to be adjacent to the WCML near Springs Branch loco shed. I was about 10, just old enough to be left to "watch the trains" by the lineside while my mother or grandad got to grieve in peace.

This was after the end of steam on BR, but before electrification of the northern WCML. Although trains were probably not quite as frequent as today, there was a huge variety of traffic and unlike today, you never knew what would turn up next. It could be a Scottish express, double-headed by a pair of class 50s, a class 40-hauled excursion to Blackpool, a parcels service, motorail, a freightliner, a through freight made up of assorted vans, wagons and tanks, or it might be a train of lumbering oil tankers. Mixed into this were humble 2-car DMUs, clanking loose-coupled coal trains, class 08 shunters pottering around Ince Moss Sidings and a regular parade of light engines going on and off shed at Springs Branch.

If it was summer and windows were open in the nearby Springs Branch No.2 signalbox,the passage of each train was accompanied by the tinging of bells and crashing of levers. An environment of great interest and variety (on what always seemed to be sunny afternoons) and what got me interested in railways.

 

[Colas56105]

"There was Stan from the station preservation group (who I fear has almost certainly passed away by now, as he was very old 20 years ago) before community rail partnerships were cool"

Sorry if you already know, but good news, Stan is still alive and well! Codsall has always been and is still currently my local and Stan is a celebrity around the local area, very well known and well liked by everyone including myself.

 

[Flamingo]

My interest started the day I got the job...

 

[LowLevel]

"There was Stan from the station preservation group (who I fear has almost certainly passed away by now, as he was very old 20 years ago) before community rail partnerships were cool"

Sorry if you already know, but good news, Stan is still alive and well! Codsall has always been and is still currently my local and Stan is a celebrity around the local area, very well known and well liked by everyone including myself.

That I'm very glad to hear - he once delivered a little brother of mine to a class 153 via a run up the track after my mum miscounted the kids and associated hangers on and passed him up to the guard (who'd already stopped the train and was waiting with the door open following my mum's hysterical bansheeing when she realised Brother Minor 1 was still on the platform )

 

[richw]

My granddad has tens of railway books, and as a small child I used to look through them for hours. He also used to take me off on the local branches most dry weekends.

A few weeks ago I discovered a disused line, a quick call to my grandad and he was able to look up on one of his old railway maps and tell me the line to look up!

 

[satisnek]

I guess my interest started as soon as I was brought back from the maternity ward, certainly from the time I was put in my own bedroom which looked out onto the Waterloo - Portsmouth main line. Back then it would have been the old 'Nelson' units but my own memories are of 12 car CIG/BIG/CIG formations on the fasts and VEPs on everything else, with all-blue EPBs/HAPs/SAPs making appearances on peak workings. Plus Class 73s on parcels trains (whatever happened to those? Parcels trains, that is). And although today I'm a fan of the low-revving English Electric stuff, I'll always have a soft spot for the 33s: when I was a kid these were 'diesels' in a world where everything else ran on three rails.

Naturally, half my bedroom became occupied with a Hornby layout, although of course the trains were absolutely nothing like those outside - the Hornby VEP and Bachmann EPB were light years away!

And my father, being a teenage trainspotter himself and by this time a commuter, fanned the flames!

I must mention something I saw in the early '90s, the final days of DMU working on the Cross City line. I was travelling up to Sutton Coldfield and in the allotments in the Chester Road/Wylde Green area was a chap pointing out our train to who was obviously his young grandson. This lad will be in his mid-to-late 20s now - I wonder if he became a railway enthusiast and if he can remember the old DMUs on the route?

 

[Midland Mole]

I was born in those halcyon days not long after Thomas the Tank Engine first appeared on television. Once that had me hooked, my Mother started taking me to the Severn Valley Railway (literally a couple of miles away) all the time. 26ish years later and the railway bug still has an iron grip on me.

Plus I am now finally able to start building a 00 gauge layout, so there will be even more trains in my life!

 

[47403]

My cousins got me into the hobby as a mere 5yr old. Sitting by the now gone signalbox about a 100yds away from where the Stadium of Light Metro station is now.

I was very confused as to why the units (101s) had an E at the front of thier numbers but the freight trains(normally 37s those days) didnt.

Getting my first locoshed book and a trip to a big station(well it was to an impressionable young boy at the time) Newcastle with my Dad n cousins, when this hobby really ramped up, then moving to Tyneside, 10min.walk from Tyne Yard, just catapulted it further. By the mid 80s, my friends would be all over the country spotting n bashing. By the turn of the 90s, in my oponion, the railways were dying a death. Loco hauled turns over the trans pennine route were replaced by 158s, sacrilage in my eyes and HSTs took over the Poole or Penzance turn, even NB locos on summer Saturdays were predominately fading as the package holidays abroad grew and trains to Blackpool, Scarborough etc wete replaced by new DMUs, HSTs or the lesser raritiy of an ETH loco. However with the alternative of footy, beer and women, plus work, the railways more or less, lost its appeal.

A nasty break up, a fair few yrs down the line(no pun.intended) saw me seek a little bit more to do and a chance meeting up with an N Powered liveried 59, whilst out with my dog, saw me get into the hobby, albeit slowly. Then i heard 47s, were doing turns from Bristol-Newcastle, which saw me whizzing down to Darlington and back on rare evenings I could get away from work. Since then, Ive been back solidly.

Am I enjoying it? Almost definitely not as much loco hauled travel obviously but the loco hauled turnd are seemingly more in vogue again. 68's on the Chiltern and Fife turns are a joy and now in Anglia too(not that Ive had the opportunity to ride them in Anglia)the cats are a great new loco, I dont know anyone who doesnt like them. 37/4s on the Cumbrian Coast and Yarmouth turns in Anglia too, 37s on a regular passenger turn, wow, 10year ago, probably longer, only the Valley.lines exprienced such luxuries. It certainly takes you back to the Scottish Highlands or Manchester/Liverpool Lime St-Cardiff days, when a ride behind such lumanaries were the norm. I still do hanker for those already mentioned, Summer Saturdays in the 80s, when some turns were NB loco heaven. At least, for now theres 37s, 57s, 67s, 68s, 90s and 91s available for loco hauled turns on a daily basis, not forgetting, the strangest one of all. You can now get a 73 for haulage in Scotland!!!!!! Whoever saw that coming in 1985?

 

[lancastrian]

For me my interest in railways started in the 60's when I would walk with my mum down a track near our house to the Preston Southport line that came out between Lindle Lane and Broad oak lane crossings, nearly getting flattened a few times as I ran across the tracks!

Really interesting, as I also used to cycle from Newlands Avenue to Broad Oak lane to see the trains at Back Lane Level Crossing. I even used the line once to travel from Cop Lane to New Longton, visiting a school friend who lived there.

Was sad to see it closed, but spent many hours at Skew Bridge, Lostock Hall, and overlooking Preston Station from near the Park Hotel. I am still interested in railways over 50 years later, although I did stop collecting numbers in the 1990's because there were so many DMU & EMU's rather than actual Locomotives.