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Personal Nostalgia

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Pigeon

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Probably the first railway experience I can specifically remember - and I think also the first time I saw any full-size locomotive of any kind - is being taken to WOS to see Gordon, and being distinctly disappointed by the experience. Basically because it wasn't bloody Gordon. It was the wrong colour and it didn't have a face and it had smoke deflectors (which were nasty ugly things and only the grumpy engine from the Other Railway ever had them) and all the bits and shape of it weren't like Gordon and it was basically just wrong. And on top of that there were so many people there that even sat on my dad's shoulders I could only see it from a bit above the boiler centreline upwards. The memory pretty much consists of (a) the top third of the wrong engine glimpsed above a massive sea of heads and upper backs, and (b) my feelings on finding out I'd been told something which wasn't true and was much more exciting than what actually was happening.

Not a promising start, one might think. But fortunately I'd well and truly got started long before, which has a lot to do with the disappointment in the first place :)

What's an "Area Manager"?

He has an Office on Paddington station and announcements used to come over the speakers asking someone or other to contact it. Eventually they got fed up with saying it so often and abbreviated it to "...contact the AMO", but it was still the same basically thoughtful message (ie. not asking people to contact him, just his office, so if he'd gone home for the night they could just turn up and go "hello office, hello doorknob, hello desk, hello light fittings" instead of getting stuck waiting around for up to sixteen hours waiting for him to come in again).

Paddington used to have a highly compacted underground toilet with an unfeasibly large number of urinals crammed into a horrid warm humid cellar that honked of disinfectant, and a hole in the corner with a barber in it. He cut my hair once. Poor bugger having to work down there all day. I wouldn't be surprised if he went mad in the end.

There was another hole hidden in the corner up in the main station on the other side. If you could remember where it was you could go straight to the Bakerloo line and avoid the crowds and hassle of trying to get in the normal way.

(Bakerloo: dvvv, dvvv, dvvdvv, dvvdvvdvvdvvdvvv, dvvdvvdvvvdvvdvvdvvdvvdvdvdvdvdvdv POP! (pause) ...dvv, dvv, dvvdvvdvvdvvdvvvvv...... . . . ...vvvvvvvvvvv-vvvv-vvv-vvv-vv-vv-vvv-vvvvv. (Stop.) Clunk. Clatterrattleclatterrattle. Errr... DGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDG... Clatt..er.rattleclatterrattle, thump. Dvvvv, dvvv, dvvv.... and so it goes on...)

The platform of Platform 1 used to be continuous for an amazingly long way out of the end of the station past parcels bays etc. IIRC they've broken it now but I used to wonder just how long a train you could theoretically have departing from it.

Far away is close at hand in messages from elsewhere.

Paddington could have this weird dual aspect to it as if it was two entirely different stations in the same place. At the Lawn end it was all crowds and bustle and men in suits, huge queues in the glass-and-rubber ticket office and glaring lights and people everywhere and a racket from all the locos at the stops and bursts of machine gun fire from the departure board, the full-on massive busy London station experience, all made of stone and concrete and iron and tarmac and other hard hostile commercial materials. But at the other end you had the footbridge coming in from the Metropolitan platforms which was often nearly deserted; it was old and soft and wooden and quiet and had a nice old wooden ticket office with short queues and windows that actually let you hear what the bloke inside was saying, and could almost be quite charming with a summer evening's sun slanting in through the windows. And it stayed like that if you went westward on that summer evening, out towards the country ends of the main platforms, out from under the main roof on towards the ends of the long fingers with their own canopies sticking way out away from the hustle and bustle. If you avoided noticing how many platforms and tracks there actually were you could almost imagine yourself to be on the platform ends of some distant and rural outpost of Great Westernry like Taunton perhaps, rather than in the London root of it.

There was a different kind of dual aspect in that journeys departing from it were invariably jubilatory, while journeys arriving at it were occasions of misery and gloom, so I can now think of it under the same physical aspects either with fondness or loathing depending on which way I imagine I'm going at the time.
 
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Strathclyder

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Three of the most notable ones for me:

  • SPT Carmine/Cream Class 318s & 334s on Ayrshire Coast duties to Ayr & Largs
  • SPT Carmine/Cream Class 320s on North Clyde duties to Balloch & Helensburgh
  • SPT Carmine/Cream Class 318s & 334s on Argyle Line duties
 

D6130

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(Bakerloo: dvvv, dvvv, dvvdvv, dvvdvvdvvdvvdvvv, dvvdvvdvvvdvvdvvdvvdvvdvdvdvdvdvdv POP! (pause) ...dvv, dvv, dvvdvvdvvdvvdvvvvv...... . . . ...vvvvvvvvvvv-vvvv-vvv-vvv-vv-vv-vvv-vvvvv. (Stop.) Clunk. Clatterrattleclatterrattle. Errr... DGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDGDG... Clatt..er.rattleclatterrattle, thump. Dvvvv, dvvv, dvvv.... and so it goes on...)
That's probably the best impression of a Bakerloo Line train that I've ever heard! :D
 

nw1

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That's probably the best impression of a Bakerloo Line train that I've ever heard! :D

On similar lines, I remember in the early 80s some Underground trains made a noise like "LUL-LUL-Lul-lul-luuuuull...' when they slowed down. Perhaps around 1981. Not sure what line though. This was, I think, well before London Underground Ltd (LUL) was in existence!

Other sound effects from the 'good old days' include 'Whop-pop-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG... pop... CLANG-CLANG.... Psssssss!' (train joined') 'DuhduhDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUH' when two EP-type Southern EMUs (41x, 42x) joined - usually at Woking IMX.

The first part the actual joining then the 'Psssssss!' related to the brake, I think.
 

D6130

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Other sound effects from the 'good old days' include 'Whop-pop-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG... pop... CLANG-CLANG.... Psssssss!' (train joined') 'DuhduhDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUH' when two EP-type Southern EMUs joined - usually at Woking IMX.

The first part the actual joining then the 'Psssssss!' related to the brake, I think.
We could start a whole new thread for railway sound impressions! :lol:
 

nw1

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who can do the music made by a cl 323? Has anyone got a musical score?

You mean the startup noise the motors (I presume) make as they leave the station? DUUUH-duh-duh-duh-duh...duuuuuh.... That is a funky noise I'd agree. The same noise is also shared by one of the two classes of Vancouver SkyTrains, or at least it was in 2004.

Perhaps because I didn't travel much on 323s in their first 10 years or so (but used them quite a lot between around 2009 and 2014), I actually think I heard the noise in Vancouver first, and associate it primarily with 'commuting' from my hotel in the suburbs into the city while viewing the North Shore mountains...
 

43096

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You mean the startup noise the motors (I presume) make as they leave the station? DUUUH-duh-duh-duh-duh...duuuuuh.... That is a funky noise I'd agree. The same noise is also shared by one of the two classes of Vancouver SkyTrains, or at least it was in 2004.

Perhaps because I didn't travel much on 323s in their first 10 years or so (but used them quite a lot between around 2009 and 2014), I actually think I heard the noise in Vancouver first, and associate it primarily with 'commuting' from my hotel in the suburbs into the city while viewing the North Shore mountains...
The noise is from the inverters, as I understand it.

Of course, the perfection of musical trains are Siemens ES64U/ES64U2 "Taurus" locos...
 

Strathclyder

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For the benefit of those who don't know what a Class 323 sounds like:


As a related aside, the KTM Class 81 (in effect a licence-built version of the 323 modified for service in Malaysia; a total of 18 sets were built) had a similar traction package from new in 1995 until all were withdrawn in 2012. The 5 sets that have been returned to service (starting in 2018) after refurbishment had a new traction package fitted as part of the work. Videos of pre and post-refurb 81s linked below:

Pre-refurb

Post-refurb

(all video copyrights remain with their respective owners)
 

Cowley

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For the benefit of those who don't know what a Class 323 sounds like:


As a related aside, the KTM Class 81 (in effect a licence-built version of the 323 modified for service in Malaysia; a total of 18 sets were built) had a similar traction package from new in 1995 until all were withdrawn in 2012. The 5 sets that have been returned to service (starting in 2018) after refurbishment had a new traction package fitted as part of the work. Videos of pre and post-refurb 81s linked below:

Pre-refurb

Post-refurb

(all video copyrights remain with their respective owners)

Interesting and I’ve just learnt something new. :)

But going back to nostalgia…

Walking into Exeter st David’s and over footbridge as a class 50 ticked over on platform 1 at the head of a Waterloo service.
Depending which loco it was, the general public would be wiping their eyes crossing the bridge as the Hoover filled that section of the station up with noxious fumes while it ticked over.

I’ve got so many more memories but that was the one that popped into my mind at first.
I can still feel myself there!
 

satisnek

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Of course, the perfection of musical trains are Siemens ES64U/ES64U2 "Taurus" locos...
That's the most amazing thing I've heard for ages! That bum note when full power is attained is hilarious!

As for our own Class 323s, they hold no nostalgia for me because by the time they were introduced I was as grown-up as I ever got and had already rattled off yards of Kodachrome on the DMUs which they replaced.

Not that it ever happened on the Cross-City line, but one thing I do find quite depressing is that we'll never, ever again experience a DMU in top gear with both speedometer and tachometer needles pinned against the end stops, and on jointed track for good measure.

But if we're talking childhood nostalgia, for me it has to be the white knuckle ride which was the Waterloo & City Line prior to the modifications following the Moorgate crash. It certainly seemed much more tame after this event but perhaps that was because I was older. I do remember, though, all the lights going out and the little emergency bulbs coming on when going over conductor rail gaps, for added effect!
 

nw1

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That's the most amazing thing I've heard for ages! That bum note when full power is attained is hilarious!

As for our own Class 323s, they hold no nostalgia for me because by the time they were introduced I was as grown-up as I ever got and had already rattled off yards of Kodachrome on the DMUs which they replaced.
True, the 323s came up as a side-topic, being still current they wouldn't be nostalgic for many - unless you lived in their area as a child/teenager/young adult and have now moved away.
Not that it ever happened on the Cross-City line, but one thing I do find quite depressing is that we'll never, ever again experience a DMU in top gear with both speedometer and tachometer needles pinned against the end stops, and on jointed track for good measure.
Jointed track! That's another one.

It's come up in another thread but this is something I definitely miss, having experienced it regularly on the Portsmouth Direct in the 80s and between Salisbury and the Bradford-on-Avon area in the 90s.

Also said this on another thread but while we're on sound effects, did anyone else at least semi-regularly travel the Haslemere to Woking section of the Portsmouth Direct in the 80s? The sound effects of jointed track and others were almost musical, and as I said before, so much that someone could compose a 'Commuter Symphony' from the sound effects. It could start with Haslemere's 'Godalming, Guildford, Woking and Waterloo' announcement made by its rather grumpy staff at the time, before launching into a piece based on the sound effects the train made as it headed to the SWML at Woking.

Being different track, they were of course entirely different northbound and southbound. Who remembers the jointed track at Milford Station resulting in non-stop trains making a hell of a noise as they passed through northbound?
 

D6130

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True, the 323s came up as a side-topic, being still current they wouldn't be nostalgic for many - unless you lived in their area as a child/teenager/young adult and have now moved away.

Jointed track! That's another one.

It's come up in another thread but this is something I definitely miss, having experienced it regularly on the Portsmouth Direct in the 80s and between Salisbury and the Bradford-on-Avon area in the 90s.

Also said this on another thread but while we're on sound effects, did anyone else at least semi-regularly travel the Haslemere to Woking section of the Portsmouth Direct in the 80s? The sound effects of jointed track and others were almost musical, and as I said before, so much that someone could compose a 'Commuter Symphony' from the sound effects. It could start with Haslemere's 'Godalming, Guildford, Woking and Waterloo' announcement made by its rather grumpy staff at the time, before launching into a piece based on the sound effects the train made as it headed to the SWML at Woking.

Being different track, they were of course entirely different northbound and southbound. Who remembers the jointed track at Milford Station resulting in non-stop trains making a hell of a noise as they passed through northbound?
I remember it well. In fact, having lived and commuted on the PDL between 1973 and 1978, I can remember the jointed track through Liphook in both directions, round the Ditcham curves (then 40 mph max, as opposed to 60 today) and across Farlington Marshes, the latter complete with horrendous roaring rails.
 

nw1

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I remember it well. In fact, having lived and commuted on the PDL between 1973 and 1978, I can remember the jointed track through Liphook in both directions, round the Ditcham curves (then 40 mph max, as opposed to 60 today) and across Farlington Marshes, the latter complete with horrendous roaring rails.

Ah the roaring rails, I remember that. Particularly prominent between Witley and Milford (that part of the symphony was particularly memorable - the roaring rails followed by the Milford clatter) and between Guildford and Worplesdon.

I didn't use the section south of Haslemere much in the 80s, just twice IIRC, in August 1983 and October 1985 on trips to see Central Division workings at Havant and Brighton respecively. So I don't remember the Liphook jointed rail, but perhaps it had gone by then.

Perhaps I have vague memories of Farlington Marshes from the early 90s, though I can't be absolutely sure.
 
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D6130

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I didn't use the section south of Haslemere much in the 80s, just twice IIRC, in August 1983 and October 1985 on trips to see Central Division workings at Havant and Brighton respecively. So I don't remember the Liphook jointed rail, but perhaps it had gone by then.
Yes, it was relaid in about 1975-76. Somewhere I have black & white photos, taken from both platforms and the footbridge at Liphook, of the works in progress, with Cromptons on the ballast trains. Of course, nowadays, they would never allow members of the public - even off-duty rail staff like me - onto station platforms where such works are taking place. It was a different world then!
 

nw1

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Yes, it was relaid in about 1975-76. Somewhere I have black & white photos, taken from both platforms and the footbridge at Liphook, of the works in progress, with Cromptons on the ballast trains. Of course, nowadays, they would never allow members of the public - even off-duty rail staff like me - onto station platforms where such works are taking place. It was a different world then!

Interesting! Actually thinking about it, I think there was a section of jointed track near, but not at, Liphook station (perhaps to the east) which survived into the 90s and could be heard quite some distance away to the south of the line.

I know the Milford jointed rail disappeared sometime in the 80s, perhaps about 1985. Though many of the other sound effects of the line remained right through the 80s, and as said above, the line through the Warminster area in particular remained a rich source of jointed track and roaring rails right through the 90s.
 
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RT4038

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Not that it ever happened on the Cross-City line, but one thing I do find quite depressing is that we'll never, ever again experience a DMU in top gear with both speedometer and tachometer needles pinned against the end stops, and on jointed track for good measure.
Oh yes! Tyne Valley line, Falkirk Grahamston to Haymarket non-stop or the Ely-Norwich line, for example. ( I think you mean the speedometer and rev counter needles....). I think there are some lines in Italy and Slovenia still using ALn668 cars which can get pretty close!
 

nw1

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Oh yes! Tyne Valley line, Falkirk Grahamston to Haymarket non-stop or the Ely-Norwich line, for example.

(EDITED after checking)

Looking at a working book from Paddington from 1981 (on the Coaching Stock groups.io group) there was a 1632 3-car DMU (so a 117, I'd presume) working which ran non-stop from Paddington to Maidenhead arriving 1703, and on the fast line too by the looks of it. That must have been quite a run!

Most such fast services were loco-hauled in the peak, and off-peak DMUs had more stops - but there was definitely this one 'express' DMU. Obviously there was a big gap behind it (next fast-line service was the 1650 HST to Bristol); HST timings to Reading were 22 minutes so presumably the HST was *just* behind the DMU at Maidenhead. (Not sure though if the DMU crossed to the relief lines at Slough).
 
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Irascible

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Yes,it came from Stonycombe Quarry near Newton Abbot.

It'd be very hard to find a more Devon quarry name than that....

There's a thread about roaring rails somewhere ( two, even ). Hurtling down the north half of the Victoria line complete with rail roar ( in a tube tunnel! ) was verging on assault at times.
 

satisnek

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Jointed track! That's another one.

It's come up in another thread but this is something I definitely miss, having experienced it regularly on the Portsmouth Direct in the 80s and between Salisbury and the Bradford-on-Avon area in the 90s.

Also said this on another thread but while we're on sound effects, did anyone else at least semi-regularly travel the Haslemere to Woking section of the Portsmouth Direct in the 80s? The sound effects of jointed track and others were almost musical, and as I said before, so much that someone could compose a 'Commuter Symphony' from the sound effects. It could start with Haslemere's 'Godalming, Guildford, Woking and Waterloo' announcement made by its rather grumpy staff at the time, before launching into a piece based on the sound effects the train made as it headed to the SWML at Woking.

Being different track, they were of course entirely different northbound and southbound. Who remembers the jointed track at Milford Station resulting in non-stop trains making a hell of a noise as they passed through northbound?
From what I remember (late '70s/early '80s) the Down line through Worplesdon was jointed but with every other joint welded, so trains would pass through with a peculiar 'half-time' beat. I do recall that both lines through the station had wooden sleepers, whereas from a point just south of here to Guildford both were relaid with concrete sleepers and CWR probably around late '60s-1970ish, shortly after my late father started commuting. Back in those days the new ballast and concrete sleepers were initially installed with rough jointed rail and the CWR itself was laid the following weekend. Dad could remember coming home from work one evening when the driver forgot about this and hit it at linespeed! As mentioned elsewhere the Up line in the Whitmoor Common area subsequently developed a nasty roar, which had the effect of trains sounding much closer than they really were when standing on the platform at Worplesdon (there's a shallow curve immediately south of the platforms).

Very little jointed track today in the Midlands - the last remaining stretch on the Stourbridge route, between Hartlebury and Droitwich Spa, was replaced under cover of COVID-19 lockdown, and of course even the Stourbridge Town branch has succumbed to progress! There's still a short length approaching Whitacre Junction from the Kingsbury direction - you'll occasionally be diverted that way - but we really are clutching at straws now.
 

CW2

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Standing on the platform of Tilehurst station in 1965 to watch Sir Winston Churchill's funeral train pass by.
 

GRALISTAIR

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Going to Manchester on Saturday in the 1970s and going round Reddish depot and Guide Bridge stabling point and seeing all the Tommies (Class 76s) and photographing them all.
 

DerekC

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My most nostalgic memories are about the sound, not the image.

Lying huddled up in bed in my grandparents' house (no central heating, frost on the windows, pitch dark, no street lights) listening to something heavy accelerating very slowly away from a signal check on the WCML in the bottom of the valley. The exhaust noise in square blocks (as somebody once put it). Whistle, and the noise fading away towards Tring Summit.

And when I was a bit older, standing by the ECML listening to the syncopated rhythm of an A3 working hard, heading north through spotters paradise between Potters Bar and Brookmans Park at about 70mph.
 

Pigeon

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Looking at a working book from Paddington from 1981 (on the Coaching Stock groups.io group) there was a 1632 3-car DMU (so a 117, I'd presume) working which ran non-stop from Paddington to Maidenhead arriving 1703, and on the fast line too by the looks of it. That must have been quite a run!

There was a while in the late 70s when several sets of those things joined together would often turn up on the 1720 WOS-PAD which was supposed to be a duff on a nice long rake of Mk 2s. Stopped at Reading and sometimes Didcot, but nowhere else between Oxford and Paddington. Endless interminable stretches of sitting in a droning, drumming box on 3+2 seating with bright lights inside and dark outside and absolutely nothing changing for what seemed like hours, while the driver thrashed the nuts off it trying to keep to time and still failed dismally.

It was really, really rancid.

I prefer an alternative memory relating to schedules on that line, in this case going the other way mostly on the 1800 ex-Pad. It was 2h10m for loco-hauled trains in those days to Worcester, and mostly they would produce a 47 but sometimes a 50. It was fairly reliable that the 47 would get you there 10 minutes late; the 50 would get you there bang on time - or it might explode somewhere on the Avon agricultural plain, and then you'd be waiting ages.

Far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere.

Thank you, I can never remember which it is. They both mean pretty much the same, after all.

There was an article which waffled on endlessly about it in one of the heavyweight London newspapers at one point, and our legend of a Latin teacher spent a good deal of one lesson reading it out to us instead of teaching us Latin. I was one of the handful who actually understood what he was on about.

It got eaten away by the wall it was on being knocked down a bit at a time, but it had already achieved legendary status and someone repainted it. Since then the same thing has happened a few more times but it keeps coming back. The last iteration I saw the best place anyone had been able to get to to repaint it was the side of a new and small brick lineside hut on the wrong side of the line (south side). It kind of lost its effect by being crammed into three or four lines and occupying the whole of the rather small wall instead of being stretched out along a much larger background, but at least the tradition is being kept up.
 
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EbbwJunction1

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My most nostalgic memories are about the sound, not the image.

Lying huddled up in bed in my grandparents' house (no central heating, frost on the windows, pitch dark, no street lights) listening to something heavy accelerating very slowly away from a signal check on the WCML in the bottom of the valley. The exhaust noise in square blocks (as somebody once put it). Whistle, and the noise fading away towards Tring Summit.
I have an equivalent memory of lying in bed listening to the shunting work in Alexandra Dock Junction / Ebbw Junction yards, Newport in the 1960s. Then it stopped .... but it seemed that one day it was there, and the next it wasn't, but this is most probably an exaggeration.
 

nw1

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From what I remember (late '70s/early '80s) the Down line through Worplesdon was jointed but with every other joint welded, so trains would pass through with a peculiar 'half-time' beat.
I do recall hearing that kind of effect elsewhere, the jointed-track sound effect but at a lower frequency than the norm. The down line through Milford Station was one example. (By contrast the up line, mentioned above, seemed to have a frequency about twice the norm indicating unusually short joints.. basically went 'Duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh, duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh" (I can still hear it now, some frightening number of years later). Similarly there was some extremely high-frequency jointed track just south of Warminster station in the 1990s.

I do recall that both lines through the station had wooden sleepers, whereas from a point just south of here to Guildford both were relaid with concrete sleepers and CWR probably around late '60s-1970ish, shortly after my late father started commuting. Back in those days the new ballast and concrete sleepers were initially installed with rough jointed rail and the CWR itself was laid the following weekend. Dad could remember coming home from work one evening when the driver forgot about this and hit it at linespeed! As mentioned elsewhere the Up line in the Whitmoor Common area subsequently developed a nasty roar, which had the effect of trains sounding much closer than they really were when standing on the platform at Worplesdon (there's a shallow curve immediately south of the platforms).
A curious coincidence of roaring lines was that many were where the line crossed open heathland, which made my 11-year old self think they might be connected. (Yes, crazy idea, I know).
 

Harvester

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And when I was a bit older, standing by the ECML listening to the syncopated rhythm of an A3 working hard, heading north through spotters paradise between Potters Bar and Brookmans Park at about 70mph.
Not only when working hard, but also when rolling to a stop in enclosed stations, with the sound of their Kylchap exhausts filling the air. Brings back memories of Darlington station in my younger days, in the years after double chimneys were fitted to the class.
 
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