What train encapulates your childhood?

[52290]

When my parents took me from Leyland to Timperley to see my grandparents it would be a Black 5 or 2-6-4 tank to Man Vic a walk down Deansgate to Knott Mill and a MSJ&A electric to Timperley. I was fascinated by the electrics which were noisy when stationary and quiet when they moved off.

 

[ls2270]

A 4-EPB with 42 on the front. I was so pleased when I grew tall enough for my legs to reach the the floor and I could sit comfortably on the bouncy seats, rather than rocking about like a small child, which I, at the grand old age of eight, considered myself no longer to be.

4EPBs for me too...although an 83 headcode for Holborn Viaduct to Sevenoaks in my case!

 

[delt1c]

126 in Green from St Enochs to Stevenson to visit Great Gran

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

The 'Cambrian Coast Express'...travelling from Paddington to Pwllheli, (where my Nain - Grandmother - lived) home for the day was a compartment for the whole family, older brothers and father hanging out the window, recording numbers for the first time in 1961, a 'King' up front, Mum's egg and tomato sandwiches and corned beef pie etc etc..wonderful memories

 

[yorksrob]

The 'Cambrian Coast Express'...travelling from Paddington to Pwllheli, (where my Nain - Grandmother - lived) home for the day was a compartment for the whole family, older brothers and father hanging out the window, recording numbers for the first time in 1961, a 'King' up front, Mum's egg and tomato sandwiches and corned beef pie etc etc..wonderful memories

You're making me feel quite hungry now !

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

You're making me feel quite hungry now !

Well, I've been vegetarian for over 40 years but I can still taste the Corned beef pie...yummy! A staple on any trips out with Dad in the 1960's!

 

[yorksrob]

Well, I've been vegetarian for over 40 years but I can still taste the Corned beef pie...yummy! A staple on any trips out with Dad in the 1960's!

I've given up meat, but I used to love a bit of corned beef !

 

[Journeyman]

All my earliest train journeys were on SUBs, EPBs and HAPs on the Southern, with occasional forays on the District line - I can just about remember CO/CP and R stocks, and the appearance of the D Stock, which felt very futuristic at the time.

I also recall my first ever trip on a 508, which seemed positively space age compared to the rather dingy and grotty SUBs and EPBs they replaced.

 

[Bevan Price]

Close to a station (Moss Bank) but not usually on the platform. The final years of the St. Helens / Rainford Junction passenger service. Usually a 2 coach push-pull set, often a Webb 2-4-2T until replaced by Ivatt 2MT 2-6-2 tanks. Occasionally a non push-pull loco would appear - a Fowler or Stanier 3MT 2-6-2 Tank. Actual rides were very rare, as the infrequent service could not compete with trolleybuses running every 6 minutes from the road next to the station.

 

[Flange Squeal]

For me it would have to be slammers (CEPs, CIGs and VEPs) wearing South West Trains' adapted NSE livery.

 

[xotGD]

Family holiday in Cornwall in 1976 - Westerns!

 

[AM9]

The clue is in the user name.

Class 306 EMUs on the Liverpool St - Shenfield line. Had my favourite seat in the motor coach and was always disappointed if someone else got there first. 024 was the last one to get underlined in my spotters book. Coincidentally 303 024 was the last Glasgow EMU I required to see before retiring from spotting.

306s were the mainstay of my teens but in my childhood virtually all of my travel was on Central Line (1923) 'standard' tube stock, (and LT SA Trolleybuses and RT buses).

 

[Whistler40145]

First Generation DMUs, Class 25s, 31s, 47s especially on Blackpool North to Euston services

 

[30909]

4 LAV Head Code 12 Redhill to Victoria for a day in the West End, dragged around the shops but lunch in a Lyons Corner House. Cartoons at the News Theatre to kill time until the cheap day ticket could be used 18:30?
Or a run to/from Guildford behind a 70c Schools.

 

[SteveM70]

Most of my early memories of train travel are 31s and steam heated Mark 1s between Nuneaton and Peterborough

Once I was old enough to be allowed out and about with my mates, anything and everything that came through Birmingham in the early 80s

Although a train features in one of my earliest memories of all - going on holiday to Cornwall and my dad paying for us to have dinner in the restaurant car. I remember clear as day we sat at the first table from the end doors, and it was gammon and pineapple. I was violently sick as soon as I ate the pineapple and I’ve never eaten it since. I’d have been 4 at the time

 

[181]

4-VEPs/SUBs/EPBs (and the occasional prototype 4-PEP) on the South Western; Mk 1 compartment stock behind a class 33 on the way down the Waterloo-Exeter line to visit grandparents; Mk 1 sleeping cars on the annual trip to Scotland. The futuristic-seeming 508s and (for some journeys further afield) HSTs entered my life when I was just a little bit older.

 

[30907]

4EPBs for me too...although an 83 headcode for Holborn Viaduct to Sevenoaks in my case!

Ditto, or 23/70/71 which took me to/from two different schools from age 9. Though I can just remember standing on the footbridge seeing units with V,H,O,S and L (for Bickley). That locates and ages me pretty well

 

[Journeyman]

4-VEPs/SUBs/EPBs (and the occasional prototype 4-PEP) on the South Western; Mk 1 compartment stock behind a class 33 on the way down the Waterloo-Exeter line to visit grandparents; Mk 1 sleeping cars on the annual trip to Scotland. The futuristic-seeming 508s and (for some journeys further afield) HSTs entered my life when I was just a little bit older.

I saw one of the PEP prototype up close a couple of times, as well as from a distance quite regularly when it sat at the back of the yard in Clapham for ages. I once saw it in about 1983 (I think) in the bay platform at Kingston, and then a few years later in the depot at Strawberry Hill (a bit of illegal shed-bunking went on here). I actually got inside it on that occasion, and it was absolutely full of paperwork scattered all over the floor - mainly circuit diagrams and stuff. How I wish I'd taken some!!!

 

[Ostrich]

Aged 8 or 9 it would be on holiday, at the end of the long platform at Bournemouth Central, watching the West Country and Merchant Navy's on passenger, and the M7's pottering around the crowded depot yard.

My fondest memories were standing on the footbridge over Prestatyn station with my brother back in the 1960s waiting for The Irish Mail to thunder through.
In those days we saw a variety of locomotives working the service including Coronations an Britannias.

One of my first photographic sessions was at Llandudno Junction on a summer Saturday in the early 60's - I'd be 11 or 12.
70023 "Venus" was one and (great excitement) 61004 "Oryx" was another!

 

[181]

I saw one of the PEP prototype up close a couple of times, as well as from a distance quite regularly when it sat at the back of the yard in Clapham for ages. I once saw it in about 1983 (I think) in the bay platform at Kingston, and then a few years later in the depot at Strawberry Hill (a bit of illegal shed-bunking went on here). I actually got inside it on that occasion, and it was absolutely full of paperwork scattered all over the floor - mainly circuit diagrams and stuff. How I wish I'd taken some!!!

I'm not 100% certain that I ever travelled on one, as I have no memory of the inside, and when I encountered a Glasgow 'blue train' in 1979 the idea of a BR train with doors like the Underground seemed very novel, but I do remember some excitement on at least one occasion about whether the train home from a visit to Hampton Court Park was going to be a 'new train'.

 

[Ianno87]

Class 150 in GMPTE Red/Grey livery, followed by a Class 156 in 'North West Express' colours.

 

[Journeyman]

I'm not 100% certain that I ever travelled on one, as I have no memory of the inside, and when I encountered a Glasgow 'blue train' in 1979 the idea of a BR train with doors like the Underground seemed very novel, but I do remember some excitement on at least one occasion about whether the train home from a visit to Hampton Court Park was going to be a 'new train'.

Do you know what era we're talking about here? If it was a PEP prototype in passenger service, it would have been in the very early seventies (around 1971 to 1974). If it was any later than that, you're probably looking at it being a 508, and they were, of course, much more common.

 

[takno]

Bubble cars on the Stourbridge Town line

 

[warwickshire]

Class 303, 304,305,,310. followed by class 101 108 142 and 144. Not forgetting the apt, class 37 and 31, north west locohauled services.

 

[Peter0124]

Class 318 with Carmine/Cream livery

 

[LMS 4F]

Ex LMS Garrats on long unfitted coal trains heading to and from London. I saw them through Bedford when I was about 5 or 6 years old for the first time and they were gone not long after.

 

[RichJF]

Commuting from Redhill to Croydon as a school kid for over a decade:
Class 423 4-Vep, 421 4-Cig in Connex or South Central livery.
Class 508 trundling along from Croydon to Redhill on the way to Maidstone.

 

[Cowley]

Class 50s all the way for me (although Peaks, 31s, 33s, 47s and DMUs were also always around).
The 50s were just so synonymous with where I grew up though, you could hear them on both the Waterloo and Plymouth lines on a still night thudding away in the distance, plus whenever you walked through the entrance onto platform 1 at St David’s there was usually one ticking over waiting to head up to Central, poisoning unsuspecting people that were crossing the footbridge...

 

[181]

Do you know what era we're talking about here? If it was a PEP prototype in passenger service, it would have been in the very early seventies (around 1971 to 1974). If it was any later than that, you're probably looking at it being a 508, and they were, of course, much more common.

Definitely not 508s, which I remember being new when I was somewhat older (when you're 9, being 4 or 5 seems a long time ago). According to https://www.bloodandcustard.com/BR-4PEP.html, the 4-PEPs 'remained in passenger service until 1977, though not diagrammed after 2‑Aug‑76'; that might fit with my guess at how old I might have been at the time of my memory.

 

[65477]

N7's + quint art sets out of Liverpool Street that Rajat the bottom of our garden.
!