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What is your earliest memory of travelling on a train?

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hexagon789

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I had a hard job trying to pin down my earliest memory of train travel. Originally I would've said a 156 to East Kilbride, but then I remembered that I had been on 303s which would be earlier, I'm guessing about 2000-2002 I can't pin it down.

I did find a record I made of trains I'd travelled on when I was about 6-7(!) That was quite an amusing read! :lol:
 
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Mag_seven

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More pressing concerns are dominating everybody's thoughts at the moment. Whatever the outcome of the current crisis things will never quite be the same again. Our economic capacity may be inhibited and projects, many of which we assiduously scrutinise and debate may find themselves altered in terms of timing, scope and perceived viability. We could roam freely over might have beens - however we could end up arguing about angels and pins.
Can I invite you to consider a different topic - What is your earliest memory of travelling on a train. to and from,where and when?, Can you remember the locomotive, the carriages, the compartment, the stops you got on and off at (do they still exist?), the trivia - machines that could stamp out your name etc. having the coach wheels tapped at Leicester?

For reference there is an existing very similar thread over in the Traction and Rolling stock section:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/first-rolling-stock-you-can-remember-travelling-on.159095/
 

route101

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I had a hard job trying to pin down my earliest memory of train travel. Originally I would've said a 156 to East Kilbride, but then I remembered that I had been on 303s which would be earlier, I'm guessing about 2000-2002 I can't pin it down.

I did find a record I made of trains I'd travelled on when I was about 6-7(!) That was quite an amusing read! :lol:

Do you recall the 101s? They lasted on EK line to around 2000. They were more common on Barrhead/Whifflets.

Mine would be Intercity 125s at Edinburgh Waverley , the screaming noise of them.
 

dgl

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Going from Crewkerne to Honiton with my Grandparents, would have been early to mid 90's travelling on a NSE 159 (although, of course, only NSE operated the 159 variant of the express sprinter).
I remember it primarily because I got invited to go in to the cab and got to toot the horn!
 

Islineclear3_1

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My first remembered experience was a trip to London with my parents in what I later understood to be an unrefurbished 4 Cep. I remember we had to change trains at Ashford and I have a vague recollection of some semaphores at its west end.
 

Bevan Price

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I don't remember my very first rides, but they probably involved journeys between St. Helens Shaw St. and Blackpool (Central or North), because we had several family holidays in Cleveleys when I was very young. We possibly needed to change at Wigan North Western or Preston on some journeys, and I have very vague memories of a grubby streamlined Stanier "Duchess" at Wigan on one trip.
 

hexagon789

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Do you recall the 101s? They lasted on EK line to around 2000. They were more common on Barrhead/Whifflets.

Mine would be Intercity 125s at Edinburgh Waverley , the screaming noise of them.

I've no recollection of 101s. My local line from 2000-2014 was the Cathcart Circle, so I've more memories of 314s and a few of 318s/334s, plus going to East Kilbride with my grandparents on 156s.
 

Revaulx

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DC electrics on the Alty Line. I’m sure I must have travelled through to London Road when I was a baby, but have only memories of changing at Oxford Road.

DMUs from Alty (or more likely Hale, our house was equidistant from each) to Chester Northgate for the zoo.

Standing by the level crossings at both Alty and Hale to admire 8Fs on the ICI hoppers.
 

_toommm_

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Rotherham to York on the few direct services a day:
- The awful smell emanating from Rotherham station pre-refurbishment as we went down the spiral ramps to access the platform.
- The deafening squeal of a Pacer's brakes as it pulled in.
- Occasionally missing the service and having to travel via Doncaster, and subsequently having to stand in the vestibule of a very packed train (probably would've been a Voyager :D)
- The Grand Central HSTs at York with the silver and golden?? doors. Also the droplight windows - they intrigued me a lot as people would be seemingly 'hanging' out of the train as it pulled into a station.
 

Grannyjoans

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Pacer travel on the Atherton line in the early-mid 1990's.

The occasional trip on a 47-hauled service between Manchester and Bolton.

Unbelievable to think back at how much more exiciting rail felt back then compared to today with the novelty well and truly worn off now.
 

WesternLancer

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More pressing concerns are dominating everybody's thoughts at the moment. Whatever the outcome of the current crisis things will never quite be the same again. Our economic capacity may be inhibited and projects, many of which we assiduously scrutinise and debate may find themselves altered in terms of timing, scope and perceived viability. We could roam freely over might have beens - however we could end up arguing about angels and pins.
Can I invite you to consider a different topic - What is your earliest memory of travelling on a train. to and from,where and when?, Can you remember the locomotive, the carriages, the compartment, the stops you got on and off at (do they still exist?), the trivia - machines that could stamp out your name etc. having the coach wheels tapped at Leicester?
Created an excellent thread here!
 

alxndr

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I think it would have been Halesworth - Woodbridge, probably around 2000. Can't remember anything particularly interesting about it, being very young at the time. Just about all I can remember is that I sat on the eastern side as I recall seeing the estuary.

I think the next journey was 2004 on a school trip to Sheringham. I'd imagine we got that from Halesworth then as well, as the local station, and the photographs that still exist from then seem to support that but I can't fully recall. I don't remember changing at Lowestoft, but they may have somehow ran straight through to Norwich back then, or my memory might have skipped that bit. I know that we had (what felt like) a long wait in Norwich for the connecting train, and nearly ended up leaving the teacher behind. I was reading my first proper adult book (Joe Inglis' It Really Does Happen to a Vet) at the time and was scared that people would see that it contained naughty words and tell me off! I was very disappointed that the following year they chose to book a coach instead.
 

Ashley Hill

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My grandparents lived next to the Devon mainline and they used to babysit me at weekends. I used to run away from the noisy trains 52s,25s,Peaks etc. Nowadays Id run towards them. My mum used to take us by train to Plymouth once a month probably behind a 1000 but as I was too young to read or write I never noted the numbers. I remember being fascinated by the parcel tugs in the subway.
 

AndyB28

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It wouldn't be a Blue Pullman on its regular service, unless it was a "special".
The Birmingham Pullman ran from Paddington, via Leamington Spa, into Birmingham Snow Hill, but the service ceased in 1966.
The Blue Pullman sets continued to be used between Paddington and Bristol, and they introduced an Oxford service around 1967, but as far as I know it never worked north of Oxford.
Thanks for that Rogercov. Unfortunately it seems the memory may have been a bit too hazy. Sadly, the couple involved have long since passed so I'll probably never know!
 

DelW

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Thanks for that Rogercov. Unfortunately it seems the memory may have been a bit too hazy. Sadly, the couple involved have long since passed so I'll probably never know!
Although it's unlikely you saw a Blue Pullman there, it's not impossible, see this photo of such a set standing in Coventry station post electrification. I suspect it's early rather than late 1960s though.
https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/lnwrcov218.htm
 

AndyB28

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Although it's unlikely you saw a Blue Pullman there, it's not impossible, see this photo of such a set standing in Coventry station post electrification. I suspect it's early rather than late 1960s though.
https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/lnwrcov218.htm
Many thanks DelW. That shot brings back memories. If I've got my orientation correct there's a footpath behind the hoardings on the left leading from the station entrance along the back of platform 1 and up to Warwick Road bridge. Spent many a happy Saturday morning there.
 

david_g

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Around 1960, trips to Manchester from Golcar, our local station. Smoke in the train in Standedge tunnel and the bankers waiting in Victoria. Had an aunt who lived in Bury, the dc electrics on the Bury line seemed very exotic when we went to visit. For some reason the bridge over the river as you walked up to Exchange sticks in the memory too.
 

billh

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Manchester, Glossop,Hadfield EMUs later class 506, when they were pretty new. Guide Bridge to London Road,passing the busy yards at Gorton,Ashburys and Ardwick. The brake compressor sound and guard's bell in the cab, if you were near the front. Usual shopping trip to Manchester was on the 219 trolley bus, the train was more exciting and quicker. Also, an EM2 hauled train from Sheffield, calling at GB, several youngsters invited into the cab of 27000(later Electra) at the buffer stops in London Road, one kid, younger than me, found the horn button so we all had to have a go, what a row!
I was on the last 506 service on 7th Dec 1984, along with a lot of other enthusiasts,loads of detonators at various stations.
 

Taunton

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I can recall, probably at age of about 3, travelling in the window seat on Bristol to Taunton, what I know know to be the Down side, and watching the telegraph wires rise and fall between each telegraph post. It was an interesting mesmerising sight to see them going up, down, up, down. Presumably there was still a Castle up front, on what, dead straight, was always one of the absolute fastest stretches of the Western.
 

satters

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Travelling on DMUs from Stourbridge Junction in the Early 1970s are my first railway experiences, I never thought then that forty odd years later that fascination would lead me to where I am in the Railway
 

Bill EWS

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My first trip by train was around 1951/2. Our Boys Brigade group had an outing to Ellon about 15 miles from Aberdeen. Very old single coaches that rattled loudly and you could hear the locomotive every now and again. It was all a bit scary to me as I had heard of trains crashing and of course, had no idea where we were going. We were walked in groups with a minder from Ellon station to the park where there was lots of stalls set up and games of all sorts. It's the first time I had heard of and seen an Aunt Sally game. Gordon Park is still there today. It doesn't look so large as it did to me way back then.

Ellon had not long lost it's branch line to Boddam and was just a normal through station. The Boddam branch became a fixture with me that I have been fascinated with ever since. A little while after that we started visiting Boddam twice a year but of course, went by bus. From Ellon the bus followed the old branch line much of the way. I recall on one trip seeing and hearing gangers picking up the track on an over bridge between Ellon and Auchmacoy. The bus stopped at Hatton Hotel that over looked the old station site and I recall seeing the platform and station buildings while they were still in quite good condition. The over bridge still stood and you looked down on the station when going over it on departing from the Hotel. The old GNSR Goods Shed remained in situ up into the 2000's. It has since been dismantled and remains in cover somewhere waiting for someone to finally get it rebuilt elsewhere. A mile or so north of Hatton the viaduct over the river Cruden still remains in isolation. The two viaducts at Cruden Bay were demolished soon after the branch closed in 1948 and the line fully picked up in 1950.

The Hatton service missed Cruden Bay and you passed the last station site at Longhaven before following the branch down the deep cutting into Boddam. You didn't see Cruden Bay station from the bus service either as the station was down a hill to the north of the village.

In 1963 I joined the railway at Kittybreswter depot in Aberdeen and worked over the Peterhead and Fraserburgh route as a second man on the diesel trains . Ellon always fascinated me and you could still see where the Boddam line branched off from the goods yard. The sidings were still quite busy then too and we shunted there numerous times. The final half mile or so was used to park old wagons right into the 60's. I always wished that I could have worked over the branch. I have walked most of the track bed over the years and visited all the station sites and have learned much about it since. You can check out my web pages at:

Ellon To Boddam Railway Walks
 

PaulLothian

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First (now dim) memory was from the mid-50s - travelling aged about 3 or 4 in a steam train out of Liverpool Street going to visit grandparents near Southend. The first half of the journey into London from Guildford in an electric train was obviously unmemorable, and in fact I don't remember ever going to watch them as they buzzed through some woodland near our home in the 10 years we lived there! Steam locos, however, were a different thing!
Only other memory was of travelling from Goathland back to grandparents in York (aged about 8) after our 20-year-old Morris 8 decided to break its gearbox near the village. Luckily those were the days when any competent village garage was able to mend most cars, so I was allowed to go on the return trip with my Dad to pick it up a couple of days later.
 

WesternLancer

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Manchester, Glossop,Hadfield EMUs later class 506, when they were pretty new. Guide Bridge to London Road,passing the busy yards at Gorton,Ashburys and Ardwick. The brake compressor sound and guard's bell in the cab, if you were near the front. Usual shopping trip to Manchester was on the 219 trolley bus, the train was more exciting and quicker. Also, an EM2 hauled train from Sheffield, calling at GB, several youngsters invited into the cab of 27000(later Electra) at the buffer stops in London Road, one kid, younger than me, found the horn button so we all had to have a go, what a row!
I was on the last 506 service on 7th Dec 1984, along with a lot of other enthusiasts,loads of detonators at various stations.
Great post! Captures the moment in London Road very well!
 

WesternLancer

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My first trip by train was around 1951/2. Our Boys Brigade group had an outing to Ellon about 15 miles from Aberdeen. Very old single coaches that rattled loudly and you could hear the locomotive every now and again. It was all a bit scary to me as I had heard of trains crashing and of course, had no idea where we were going. We were walked in groups with a minder from Ellon station to the park where there was lots of stalls set up and games of all sorts. It's the first time I had heard of and seen an Aunt Sally game. Gordon Park is still there today. It doesn't look so large as it did to me way back then.

Ellon had not long lost it's branch line to Boddam and was just a normal through station. The Boddam branch became a fixture with me that I have been fascinated with ever since. A little while after that we started visiting Boddam twice a year but of course, went by bus. From Ellon the bus followed the old branch line much of the way. I recall on one trip seeing and hearing gangers picking up the track on an over bridge between Ellon and Auchmacoy. The bus stopped at Hatton Hotel that over looked the old station site and I recall seeing the platform and station buildings while they were still in quite good condition. The over bridge still stood and you looked down on the station when going over it on departing from the Hotel. The old GNSR Goods Shed remained in situ up into the 2000's. It has since been dismantled and remains in cover somewhere waiting for someone to finally get it rebuilt elsewhere. A mile or so north of Hatton the viaduct over the river Cruden still remains in isolation. The two viaducts at Cruden Bay were demolished soon after the branch closed in 1948 and the line fully picked up in 1950.

The Hatton service missed Cruden Bay and you passed the last station site at Longhaven before following the branch down the deep cutting into Boddam. You didn't see Cruden Bay station from the bus service either as the station was down a hill to the north of the village.

In 1963 I joined the railway at Kittybreswter depot in Aberdeen and worked over the Peterhead and Fraserburgh route as a second man on the diesel trains . Ellon always fascinated me and you could still see where the Boddam line branched off from the goods yard. The sidings were still quite busy then too and we shunted there numerous times. The final half mile or so was used to park old wagons right into the 60's. I always wished that I could have worked over the branch. I have walked most of the track bed over the years and visited all the station sites and have learned much about it since. You can check out my web pages at:

Ellon To Boddam Railway Walks
Great post - that inspired me to look at the OS map of the area, which I don't know at all - must have been a nice run along the coastal bit into Boddam. I will look at your site. Thanks for posting Bill
 

Calthrop

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I've loved railways ever since I first saw a train: but my first conscious memory of travel on one, is from when I was aged probably 4 (rail travel for me might have happened at an even younger age; but if so, no memory of it). "First recalled such", must I think have happened in 1952 or '53. We lived in Spalding: journey was a family day trip to Hunstanton, via Sutton Bridge and King's Lynn. My memories are "for sure", but few and fragmentary -- have an inkling that the family including myself, might have done this thing twice, in successive years: if so, then my memories might be a combination from both journeys -- or, from just one.

A thing I know for certain re the above, is that it involved a special Spalding -- Hunstanton and return excursion train, on a Sunday, when there were no normal scheduled passenger workings on the ex-Midland & Great Northern Joint line Spalding -- South Lynn -- King's Lynn. Motive power was, obviously, steam: beyond that -- my rail interest has anyway, always been "aesthetic" rather than "rivet-counting"; and aged four or five, I had barely any inkling of different loco types. From data generally known, it would seem probable that haulage at least between Spalding and King's Lynn, would have been Ivatt Class 4 2-6-0; whether the same loco worked through to / from Hunstanton, or whether there was a loco change at King's Lynn, is totally unknown to me.

I remember that it was a beautiful sunny summer's day; and remember on the outward run, a scene of some slight trouble and tension at a small station at which we stopped, somewhere west of Sutton Bridge -- have a feeling that it could well have been Fleet -- involving a minor mishap with the single-line token which, when all went well, was automatically picked up by apparatus on the loco: recall railwaymen running about in pursuit of the errant token. Also, that our party included an uncle of mine who was staying with us at the time, and who was rather a wag: we stopped for passengers at many if not all of the intermediate stations, and at each station called at, he made up a comical rhyme based on its name. I remember actually being at Hunstanton; but nothing whatever, about the part of the journey on the ex-GER King's Lynn -- Hunstanton line (though I travelled on that line a fair number of times in later years).

Ellon had not long lost it's branch line to Boddam and was just a normal through station. The Boddam branch became a fixture with me that I have been fascinated with ever since. A little while after that we started visiting Boddam twice a year but of course, went by bus. From Ellon the bus followed the old branch line much of the way. I recall on one trip seeing and hearing gangers picking up the track on an over bridge between Ellon and Auchmacoy. The bus stopped at Hatton Hotel that over looked the old station site and I recall seeing the platform and station buildings while they were still in quite good condition. The over bridge still stood and you looked down on the station when going over it on departing from the Hotel. The old GNSR Goods Shed remained in situ up into the 2000's. It has since been dismantled and remains in cover somewhere waiting for someone to finally get it rebuilt elsewhere. A mile or so north of Hatton the viaduct over the river Cruden still remains in isolation. The two viaducts at Cruden Bay were demolished soon after the branch closed in 1948 and the line fully picked up in 1950.

The Hatton service missed Cruden Bay and you passed the last station site at Longhaven before following the branch down the deep cutting into Boddam. You didn't see Cruden Bay station from the bus service either as the station was down a hill to the north of the village.

In 1963 I joined the railway at Kittybreswter depot in Aberdeen and worked over the Peterhead and Fraserburgh route as a second man on the diesel trains . Ellon always fascinated me and you could still see where the Boddam line branched off from the goods yard. The sidings were still quite busy then too and we shunted there numerous times. The final half mile or so was used to park old wagons right into the 60's. I always wished that I could have worked over the branch. I have walked most of the track bed over the years and visited all the station sites and have learned much about it since. You can check out my web pages at:

Ellon To Boddam Railway Walks

The cluster of ex-GNSR lines due north of Aberdeen, has always fascinated me -- overwhelmingly on a theoretical-only level, alas. I tend mentally to home-in particularly on the Boddam branch, in part no doubt, because of its early demise (passenger service withdrawn 1932; freight, as you @Bill EWS mention, a decade-and-some later). Also part of the general spell which this part of the rail system holds over me, is (as I have written of in another thread in this sub-forum) what seems the slightly crazy situation of two branches -- Ellon to Boddam and Maud to Peterhead -- terminating within about three miles of each other; with (icing on cake) geographically in between them, the short Peterhead Prison Railway, also standard-gauge; but with no physical connection between any of these lines in the Peterhead / Boddam area. I would imagine that the GNSR or its antecedents, had at least entertained thoughts and plans re making a connection within this small area; but that, with the way things panned out, it somehow never happened.
 

Bill EWS

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If there had been two railway companies then there may well have been two stations in Peterhead. However the GNSR was in competition with itself over the two sections between Maud and Ellon to Boddam and Maude to Peterhead in that improving one route would have seriously affected the other, so nothing got done. This still applies today! When it comes to reopening the Maude-Peterhead route and/or the Ellon- Boddam route one will affect the other with the same issue. Two ideas for the Peterhead route is to possibly build a junction to Fraserburgh from Mintlaw as was the original idea in the 1800's when the route was planned. The junction was not initially planned to be at Maude. Likewise, today a new station at Peterhead is possibly to be at Inverugie. Two miles from the centre of Peterhead. Yet, if the Boddam- Ellon route was chosen a new station to the south but much closer to the town centre at Peterhead would be possible and make the Inverugie site rather pointless. I believe even the Maude Museum people have given thought to making the junction at Mintlaw in their present day thinking.

And again, if the Boddam route is chosen would there be need to run back to Ellon! The population between Loghave, Pitlurg and Auchmacoy is still quit thin. Yet there is a lot of potential in building a new line from Cruden Bay to Aberdeen taking in the larger population between Newburgh, Bridge Of Don and Aberdeen. The mistake for Peterhead has always been that it went via Dyce and Ellon almost doubling the mileage to Peterhead compared to the coastal road. It could be interesting times when serious thought is put on reopening these routes.
 

Struner

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My first memory of a train journey is from Kampen to Zwolle, in a single diesel unit, must have been around 1950, then onwards to Grou on a steam train. I was 4 at the time. But the most memorable fact was that my father & I were collected by my uncle, who rowed us to his farm. There were very few roads in that part of the world at the time. Everything was done by boat. My fresh signature now shows the trains. :smile:
 

Western Sunset

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We only generally used the train once a year when I was little to go on holiday to Skeggy.

I can remember one such journey from Derby Friargate, looking out of the carriage and seeing the smoke from the loco (probably a B1) drifting across Darley Park at the start of our journey.
 

davyp

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As a four year old (probably December 1952) being taken by my mum to see Father Christmas at Lewis's in Manchester. I remember a very cold, dull day, waiting for the train from Davenport Station to Manchester London Road. At this distance in time, I cannot remember the locomotive, but very probably a Fowler 2-6-4T, but I can clearly remember the carriages, dull maroon, and a door to each compartment, no corridor. Once on the train, I started pulling on a long leather strap under the door window until told to "come here and sit still!"
 
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