Most vivid childhood railway memory

[Harlesden]

At the age of 7-8, I was newly arrived in Grimsby (having been moved there from my birthplace of Staines) and I found myself living in a house in Peaksfield Avenue which faced onto what I now know was the East Lincolnshire Line.
Throughout each night, there would be goods trains presumably fish trains - making their way past, about to go over or having just gone over Welholme Road level crossing.
They were steam hauled in 1963 and made a lot of noise,but for a small boy was immensely exciting.
Unfortunately it was a very temporary location as my mum got me into St.James's Choir School in Bargate as a boarder.
I was happy to leave Grimsby at the age of 18 in 1973 having been kicked out by my mum over my taste in females, but as I approach 60, I enjoy the occasional trip back.

 

[Welshman]

Never mind your railway memories - you must tell us more about your taste in females!

One of my earliest childhood memories is of being taken on the old Hebble bus from Halifax to Bradford and walking across Bradford from Chester St to Exchange station, to go on one of the recently-introduced dmus to Leeds Central. I was fascinated at being able to stand at the front and watch the driver.

I later discovered they were the "Derby Lightweight" units, introduced in June 1954, but I would have been six or seven [ie 1955-67] when I was introduced to them.

And there began a fascination with railways which has stuck with me ever since.

 

[SouthEastern-465]

As I'm still quite reasonably young, unfortunately most of my fond memories don't go as far back as the other posts!

But my best memories are of the 'Slamdoors on the SouthEastern in the late 1990s, I can remember watching VEPs, CIGs, CEPs all whizzing by an remember how loud they used to be when passing compared to an Electrostar today!

My fondest memory would be of a trip I had to Hastings in about 1998, an being in a VEP compartment an being amazed at my first ride on the "Bobbly topped train" as I use to call them as a toddler, I absolutely loved it, it was a clear summers day an the compartment was lovely! The only down point was I had a Class 365 on the way back which I remember I found disappointing even back than!

 

[elarchibaldo]

I must have the most recent memories! It was the early 2000's, and I just remember being in my buggy and watching everything from 108's to 170's blast tones for me through Flixton. The days of getting tones are gone now though.

 

[stevread1]

My earliest memories was that we lived next to the wcm @ Hillmorton nr Rugbyl since I was 2 yrs old. My dad was a guard on British Railways and evrey time he went passed our house he would lean out and wave. If he was on freight (CLASS81-87 OR CLAS 25 DIESEL) he would blast out the 2 tone horn as he approached or on express or units 310 mainly or 304 he would lean out and wave.

Also there was the annual holiday always taken by train. One year was to Gt Yarmouth, via Nuneaton. This was really exciting for us Kids as we had 2x31s to Norwich and then class 37 to Yarmouth.

 

[Harlesden]

Welcome stevread1. I couldn't recall what the 304's looked like so I had to go to Wikipedia. My earliest (childhood) holidays were in Hayling Island - no memory of the journey unfortunately.

 

[stevread1]

The 304's were great, if you were in front of the power car you would feel the push every time the driver notched the power up. And because their was no corridor connecters between coaches you could go and sit in first class and no one would know. I cant rember now but think first class might have been compartments.
When the last ones were withdrawn they were stored in the carriage sidings at Rugby for some time. There was some graffiti in one of the guards vans that said "THANK GOD FOR 304'S DONT HAVE TO CHECK TICKETS TODAY" Think this was from when they spent there last days on the b'ham cross city when it was first electrified before the 323's arrived.

 

[neilmc]

We used to live in East End Park area of Leeds until I was nine, not far from Neville Hill depot. On one occasion we walked around the park and at one point the path ran very close to the railway, especially the line into the shed which was only feet away. Along came a very strange loco which, to a small boy, was alarmingly near. Later, I recognised the shape of an A4 pacific - never got the number though.

 

[Frosticles]

I lived in Balderton, Right next to the ECML. Fondest memories was going down to the Grove Playing Field to watch the Deltics fly past in the early 70's My Father still lives in the same house but the railway is now well obscured & the playing field is now all fenced off & not open to the public

 

[LE Greys]

My taste in females led directly to my most vivid railway memory, but I don't really count age sixteen as 'childhood'.

That leads me to preserved line. I remember travelling on a lot of short-stumpy lines in the 1980s, where industrial shunters would haul mixed bags of MkIs for a mile or so, run round, then come back to where they started. These were also the days when footplate visits were perfectly normal. It probably helps that I used to play with an ancient 110 camera from age three, and sometimes it had a film in it. The first railway pictures come from Embsay, on what was then the Yorkshire Dales Railway, a Hunslet? tank engine called Beatrice. It was 'steam weather', meaning pouring rain.

Other memories involve 'Bendybuses' from Skipton station, which were new then, but already a bit rough-riding and noisy. Still, we were going to York. I got lightly toasted in a brand new 158 where the heating had stuck on (in mid-August on a sunny day). The NRM still had two turntables then, and only one building.

 

[oddiesjack]

I suppose the most vivid memory for me is going on a schools special from Hayfield to Windermere in 1959 or 60. The thing that most sticks in my memory is the sight of Britannia 70021 "Morning Star" hard up against the buffers, smokebox-first, in the platform road at Hayfield in order to clear the points for the run-round. This would definitely be my first Pacific that registered, and the first "namer", I suspect.

From Hayfield, we went down tender-first through New Mills, Marple and Romiley, then taking the Midland line to the stygian gloom of Stockport Tiviot Dale, by which time time the train must have filled up, and the Brit ran round, so it was facing the right way for the journey to Oxenholme and Windermere. I presume we must have gone through Woodley , but don't know what route we took to get to the WCML. Neither do I recall any of the return journey, sadly.

 

[TheEdge]

Earliest and most vivid is probably aged 7 or 8 (maybe younger) is being sat in the carpark of Safeway (as it was) in Shrewsbury and watching double headed 37s on the Marches steel trains.

 

[LE Greys]

Earliest and most vivid is probably aged 7 or 8 (maybe younger) is being sat in the carpark of Safeway (as it was) in Shrewsbury and watching double headed 37s on the Marches steel trains.

Reminds me of something similar, being stuck in the car park of Halfords staring at Langley Junction hoping for something other than a 317 to come past. We had an Alfa 33 at the time, a black one, and having watched Knight Rider a few times too often, I used to be an absolute nightmare for fiddling with all the switches, trying to find the one that made the car jump in the air.

 

[quarella]

Due to my father's employers supplying a succession of Ford Escort Populars (plastic seats-Ouch!!) and the fuel we hardly ever went on a train. However due to a Persil promotion in the late '70s or early 80s the Scout Group I was a member of were going to travel on an HST from Weston-super-Mare to York arriving in time for lunch and spend the afternoon in the National Railway Museum.
My recollections of the trip are several hours at Derby due to no driver where we must have driven the leaders/helpers/parents up the wall as they tried to keep us entertained. When we eventually reached York a very quick circuit of the museum as we had to catch the train home. We went to Exeter Maritime museum by coach the following year.

Although we did not use trains my parents enrolled us in RailRiders (47406). Probably discounts to be had at sticker stations for members. I can only assume one of them in the Stirling area required a valid rail ticket because my brother and I were put on the train at Perth and told to get off at Stirling where they would meet us after driving between the two. No recollection of the train, the scenery, only terrified I would never see my parents again.

 

[Spaceflower]

My earliest memory was of a small black mechanical shunter running over a level crossing on the Pesspool branch from Hawthorn Shaft with a rake of tipper wagons for tipping at Tuthill quarry.

I had some old encyclopedias which had been handed down from my dad in which 'trains' were excemplified by large diesel electrics on the west coast mainline on crack expresses complete with route indicator discs. Those pictures really inspired my interest. However, in the real world, those days had already long departed and I was left to awe in the thunderous shaking power of the 56's hauling MGR's down the east Durham line (which echoed throughout the nineties even as far away as my village, many miles away, especially during the night) and the deafening scream of the HST's at Durham.

Ofcourse a present in the form of a book called 'The Deltic Years' placed a great deal of affectrion upon the diesel electric locomotive and instilled me with a deep awareness of the sad decline of a generation. I have always since held a fondness for the name 'Tulyar'

 

[swj99]

When I was 13, me and a mate skived off school one afternoon, caught the train at Styal station and went to Congleton. It was a dark blue train, and I seem to remember it had what seemed like oversized and very comfortable seats, and carriages that didn't have an interconnecting door into the next one.

This was in about 1979. Looking at recent online pictures of Styal station, it doesn't seem to have changed much in all that time.
After lunch and a drink in The Antelope pub (we didn't get asked our age or thrown out) we had a wander round, and sometime before we caught the train back, we went halves on a copy of Club International. Neither of us wanted to take it home and risk being caught with it, so after we'd read it, on the train on the return journey, we took it apart, page by page and threw the pages out of the window as the train went through a tunnel. After we got off the train at Styal, we looked round at the train only to see loads of the pages stuck to the side of the train due to the rain. I remember seeing the guard leaning out of one of the windows, looking along the side of the train, then back at us, as we legged it out of the station.

 

[Crossover]

My most vivid childhood memory is one I have in part recounted to a number of other members in the past.

My Grandma used to semi-regularly travel to visit family in Cardiff, from Yorkshire, usually traveling from Wakefield Westgate.

We used to regularly go on the platform to see her off and my most vivid memory is watching the train leave and usually been unable to let it pass without covering my ears. It was what I now believe to have been a Valenta powered IC125 in most cases!

I'm fairly certain we may have also seen some of the London trains which were quieter at one end than the other., which of course were the IC225's with DVT being all quiet at one end (but looking vory similar to the 91's)

Only as I have got more interested in the railways has all this started to make some sense

I do also remember traveling into/out of London with family whilst on holiday, from Reading I think, on slammers. Unfortunately that isn't such a fond memory as all I can recall really is the awful smell in the carriages

 

[ash39]

We used to live in East End Park area of Leeds until I was nine, not far from Neville Hill depot. On one occasion we walked around the park and at one point the path ran very close to the railway, especially the line into the shed which was only feet away. Along came a very strange loco which, to a small boy, was alarmingly near. Later, I recognised the shape of an A4 pacific - never got the number though.

Small world, I also grew up in this area and remember the days when you could walk between the black stone wall and the railway (starting from the bridge at east park parade). There was just a small wooden fence about knee high so you got great views of the curve and could walk right round and look at the goings on at the depot. Must dig some of ly old photos out.

This was in the early 90's, sadly you cant do this anymore as it is outrageously overgrown and has metal security fencing.

One of my first ever memories in life is of a gleaming ic225 moving out of Neville Hill towards city station ECS,must have been almost brand new and I would have been about 4. My parents said I liked the.'big' intercity trains (hst) but to see an electric one that I didn't even know existed was amazing for a young boy!

However my favourite memory was around a decade later, between 1999-2000 my mum was sadly terminaly ill and we went on a few weekends away/days out, all by train as she didn't drive. We went to Morecambe a couple of times in the summer and i remember having a fascination with Virgin trains due to the striking livery, so obviously I was delighted that there was no direct service in those days and you had to change at Preston and Lancaster. One journey on the return leg from Lancaster it was pretty full in the mk2 or mk3 (not sure which but pretty sure we were hauled by an IC liveried 87). It was a lovely summers evening and we decided to stay in the corridor to cool down. We had the window down and that part of the WCML is rather scenic so it looked fantastic in the evening light and having the windows down heightened the sense of speed. I know line speed back then was 110mph but it felt like a lot more. You could have offered me a comfy seat in an air conditioned carriage with a smooth ride but theres no way I'd have swapped. It was all over far too quickly but I won't ever forget the journey. I wish I had more details and photos to go with the memory.

 

[Cab2Cab]

Hi,

Bought up in the east midlands so for me a pair of BR blue class 20's pulling the 16 ton mineral wagons (i think they were 16 ton, please correct me if i am wrong) with a guards van on the back and the introduction of the class 56's and MGR train's.

Wish i had took photo's but when your a kid you think things are here too last!

Cheers

 

[scarby]

Most vivid: probably walking up and down platform 1 and 2 of Scarborough station on summer afternoons where rakes of Mk1 coaches stood with a silent 40 or 45 at the head.

 

[Mvann]

Mine would have to be either the underground stock on the Isle of Wight while on holiday in 1973 or the track maintenance vehicles that came past the back of the house. We lived next to the Leicester to London line.

 

[IanD]

One of my earliest childhood memories is of being taken on the old Hebble bus from Halifax to Bradford and walking across Bradford from Chester St to Exchange station.

Chester Street Bus Station - now that brings back many happy memories in itself. Used to be mad keen on buses and had covered all the Bradford City Transport routes on my own by the time I was 7 (those were the days) and Chester Street offered new journey opportunities to such exotic destinations as Keighley, Skipton, Heckmondwike, Cleckheaton and the (to me) fantastic joint BCT/WYRCC route 68/68A to Eldwick (Beck Bottom).

My earliest train memories are of leaving for family holidays from Bradford Exchange to Scarborough or days out to York. I used to love the concourse at Exchange and the arched roof used to impress me no end. Don't remember much of the journeys though!

First journey I really remember was with my mother, 3 brothers and 2 sisters (and some of my mum's friends and their kids). It was only from Bradford to Leeds and back but the tickets were free! It was a schoolday so we all took the day off to take advantage (no writing a begging letter to the headmaster in those days!) I always thought that the tickets were free to commemorate the opening of New Pudsey station but that was before I started school so now I believe it was for the opening of Bradford Interchange (still called Exchange then I think) in 1973(?). Nothing special about the trip, just the excitement of a day off school and my mum being chuffed about it being free!

However, it was another few years before I caught the railway bug.

 

[Welshman]

Chester Street Bus Station - now that brings back many happy memories in itself. Used to be mad keen on buses and had covered all the Bradford City Transport routes on my own by the time I was 7 (those were the days) and Chester Street offered new journey opportunities to such exotic destinations as Keighley, Skipton, Heckmondwike, Cleckheaton and the (to me) fantastic joint BCT/WYRCC route 68/68A to Eldwick (Beck Bottom).

My earliest train memories are of leaving for family holidays from Bradford Exchange to Scarborough or days out to York. I used to love the concourse at Exchange and the arched roof used to impress me no end. Don't remember much of the journeys though!

Yes - Chester St Bus station was an interesting place, for as well as the destinations you mention and the Hebble services to Halifax via Shelf, Queensbury or Wibsey, it was also the terminus for the X12 service to Manchester and the Yorkshire Woollen District dd. all the way to Sheffield.

As you say, the overall roof at Bradford Exchange was spectacular. I think I remember reading somewhere that it was modelled on the original one at St Pancras.

 

[90019]

I have few memories in general, but the only railway related one I can think of from when I was young is going over the Forth Bridge for the first time, I think on a 156, some time in the 90s (possibly 94 or 95). I have a feeling it was orange and black, but I don't know if that's just my mind filling in details I can't remember.
Oddly I quite clearly remember that we were heading up North for some reason and we only went over the bridge on the train, while my Dad drove over the road bridge in the silver Volvo 740 estate he had at the time and met us on the other side.

 

[12CSVT]

Seeing rows of withdrawn Claytons at St. Rollox works in the early 1970s.

 

[Zamracene749]

My very earliest memory is of waving at a train from a park near my grandparents home in Dumbarton, it was a locomotive hauled (class 26/27?) service, probably heading up to Fort William or beyond.
I was however only about 3/4 years old at the time and sitting on a moving park swing, sadly letting go of the chains to wave resulted in me falling off and landing head first on the tarmac.....
....I've never been quite the same since

Lots of other less painful memories include early rides on (coolant leaking) HSTs, being shown around the cab of a Deltic on a sweeper train at York, sitting at the front of met-camm and cravens dmus between Newcastle and Sunderland plus, as mentioned by William, experiencing those magnificent class 56s with 36 loaded HAA in tow accelerating away from the Durham coast pits, the screaming turbochargers and earth shaking beat of the engines would fill the denes (valleys) as they crossed over Horden and Crimdon viaducts, really something to behold for fans of those unsung locomotives.

 

[Harlesden]

Was it Cravens DMU's used on the local journeys between Paddington and Slough?
I met my first love on that route, two fellow commuters, but it was a few days after first seeing her I managed to pluck up the courage to actually talk to her.
I was a slim 18-year old English boy and she was a beautiful big Barbadian lady of 34. We were together for five years.

 

[gazthomas]

For me a "ready teddy go" promotion when my late mother and a friend of mine went to London from North Wales for the day the early eighties.

 

[stevread1]

Hi,

Bought up in the east midlands so for me a pair of BR blue class 20's pulling the 16 ton mineral wagons (i think they were 16 ton, please correct me if i am wrong) with a guards van on the back and the introduction of the class 56's and MGR train's.

Wish i had took photo's but when your a kid you think things are here too last!

Cheers

Yes in those days it seemed like BR blue and heritage traction would last forever. My biggest regret is the what I missed as I thought it always would be their.
Second regret in my "youth" years gave up trains for a few years (women and beer seemed more fun at the time) as it was uncool and threw away all my old photos. from the early 80's)

 

[Cab2Cab]

Yes in those days it seemed like BR blue and heritage traction would last forever. My biggest regret is the what I missed as I thought it always would be their.
Second regret in my "youth" years gave up trains for a few years (women and beer seemed more fun at the time) as it was uncool and threw away all my old photos. from the early 80's)

So you gave the railway the boot for a few cans of SKOL, and the ladies with shoulder pads and big hair. .........(me too, )

The photo's on the internet has took me back looking at times past. :cry: