What train encapulates your childhood?

[O L Leigh]

My first exposure to the railways was when growing up in Norwich, so the trains that I remember most were Blue Square DMUs, mostly Cl101s (three windscreens) and Cl105s (two windscreens), Cl31s and Stratford silver-topped Cl47s in "banger blue" and the Cl03 station pilots.

I do remember attending the Clown Point open day shortly after the depot was opened and seeing a brand new Cl58 as well as a pair of new Cl315s inside the shed. On one trip through Thorpe station my Mum mentioned that the train I would later know to be LEV1 was kicking about and might be there, but it wasn't.

 

[Diplodicus]

I was about to claim "The Red Dragon" in the 1950s from Paddington to Neath but having chacked, it departed at 07:30 and I'm pretty sure we didn't get there that early. Was there a 09:00 departure? I remember the dining car steward walking through the train giving out reservation tickets for first and second sitting for lunch.

In my mind, at Paddingotn, walking up from the District Line onto The Lawn, everything was wither brown or charcoal grey. The building, the trains and th people.

I was once sent to Neath as "freight". My dad asked someone to keep an eye on me and i was put in the luggage "cage" with a label. I think he gave them 2/6d for their trouble. My aunty Val was waiting to retrieve me at Neith (General) and apparently I was so dirty, they put me under a loatform tap to remove some of the crud before Uncle John would let me in his new Ford Prefect!!! I would have been about eight years old!!

 

[Cheshire Scot]

I do remember the 40s and 47s and steam but the double headed 50s really bring the memories back.

They were an impressive sight, especially if they were passing the bottom of your garden.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

They were an impressive sight, especially if they were passing the bottom of your garden.

Exactly. So if I planned a trip to Crewe Works with a permit during the summer holidays in the 1970s I could get the entire fleet in about 2 weeks. I gave up counting after 20 sets. I have a photo of them all multiple times and also have had haulage by them all as I did haulage back in 1970 even though the craze did not take off until about 1977 iirc

 

[greatvoyager]

For me I remember the FGW HSTs in Green and Gold livery, and also Merlin Great Western livery.

 

[LowLevel]

The humble Dogbox 153 DMU roaring and screeching along and getting nowhere particularly fast, with a change at Wolverhampton if we were going anywhere interesting. The friendly railwaymen with a slower pace of life back then whose kindness towards a train mad little boy and his long suffering mum helped inspire me to follow them on to the railway - the ticket examiner who would let me print our tickets on his SPORTIS machine, the regular blokes checking tickets in those red boxes BR used to have, the guard who would sometimes let you have a short ride in the rear cab and blow the horn or release the train doors, the chap who came down from Shrewsbury once a week to empty the bins and change the engineering posters, the platform lad who took my mum over in the old goods lift with scissor gates with me in my pushchair, the same woman in the advance travel centre who booked our holiday tickets to Devon, Somerset or Norfolk every year.

It was the last days of BR and it feels like a very different world now, though we still just about hang on to the Dogboxes for a couple more months and I still try to remember to be kind to little kiddies.

What is nice is that nearly 30 years down the line I still hear about and occasionally see some of these people, not always doing the same job but I still remember my mum telling me on the phone how happy our old regular ticket examiner was when she mentioned to him that I had started working as a guard a while ago now.

 

[gaillark]

317's when they were introduced on BedPan line.
Amazing smooth ride, rapid acceleration, quality pressure heating, double glazed windows and being able to access the toilet from any part of the train compared to the old DMU's.

And also HST. As a child they scared me with their screaming valenta engines thundering through. Still remember my first ride on HST and still very fond of them today.

 

[Bungle158]

Another vote for BILs and HALs this time leaving from the long defunct Reading SR station. The echo of staff whistling, the noise of compressors and for some reason, the smell of disinfectant which always seemed to hang around the covered area inside the station building.

 

[MackTen]

Getting two fingers properly jammed in a slam door. Definitely about eight.

Luckily for British Rail, I was too young to be scarred for life, mentally or physically, and that their crappy doors were so unfit for purpose, there was enough of a gap for the two finger bones of an innocent wee boy, and so to this day, I remain unbroken, in the literal and physical sense.

Lucky also that my mother was a no fuss type of girl, who wouldn't have dared sue her (as it happened) former employer, and instead simply conveyed his slightly bewildered self to the medical room at her current employer, which for some long lost reason I was being taken to that day anyway, where he got checked for broken bones, bandaged up, and distracted with sweets and nice ladies cooing all over him.

It is genuinely odd, I think at least, that even though I have such a clear memory of the incident, and the actual fuss and mothering that followed, but I have never had any lasting squeamishness about the quite characteristic sounds and smells of those crappy EMUs, in particular that loud mechanical clunk of the door.

Quite fond of it actually, and definitely not in a Stockholm syndrome type of way either.

 

[delt1c]

They were an impressive sight, especially if they were passing the bottom of your garden.

Watching double headed 50’s thundering through Carstairs brings back happy memories of railways, family and childhood

 

[Johnnie2Sheds]

I learnt how to count watching filthy 9Fs wheeling Stewart & Loyds wagons through the local station.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Getting two fingers properly jammed in a slam door. Definitely about eight.

Luckily for British Rail, I was too young to be scarred for life, mentally or physically, and that their crappy doors were so unfit for purpose, there was enough of a gap for the two finger bones of an innocent wee boy, and so to this day, I remain unbroken, in the literal and physical sense.

Lucky also that my mother was a no fuss type of girl, who wouldn't have dared sue her (as it happened) former employer, and instead simply conveyed his slightly bewildered self to the medical room at her current employer, which for some long lost reason I was being taken to that day anyway, where he got checked for broken bones, bandaged up, and distracted with sweets and nice ladies cooing all over him.

It is genuinely odd, I think at least, that even though I have such a clear memory of the incident, and the actual fuss and mothering that followed, but I have never had any lasting squeamishness about the quite characteristic sounds and smells of those crappy EMUs, in particular that loud mechanical clunk of the door.

Quite fond of it actually, and definitely not in a Stockholm syndrome type of way either.

Oof! This post made me wince!

 

[alistairlees]

Ah, the ticket sheds with their illuminated green tick and red cross !

Does anyone have a photo of these? I never took one. It all seemed so mundane then. The station was so quiet then that often there was just one person checking in each direction.

Exactly. So if I planned a trip to Crewe Works with a permit during the summer holidays in the 1970s I could get the entire fleet in about 2 weeks. I gave up counting after 20 sets. I have a photo of them all multiple times and also have had haulage by them all as I did haulage back in 1970 even though the craze did not take off until about 1977 iirc

Impressive

 

[yorksrob]

Does anyone have a photo of these? I never took one. It all seemed so mundane then. The station was so quiet then that often there was just one person checking in each direction.

One of those things that few people, if any, saw as worth recording for posterity !

 

[jfollows]

AM4 electric multiple units (class 304) to school Poynton-Cheadle Hulme at age 8 in 1970, also for trips to the swimming baths in Macclesfield from Poynton with my friend Robert.

 

[alistairlees]

One of those things that few people, if any, saw as worth recording for posterity !

Almost found a photo: https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co...wns-life-railways-during-1980s-2552239?page=1

 

[OuterDistant]

Possibly not meeting the OP's criteria but the train that takes me back to 8 or 9 years old (around 1989) would be the HST, despite our local line being almost exclusively the domain of 150/1s. Everybody knew the "Intercity 125" when you mentioned you were interested in trains.

 

[yorksrob]

Almost found a photo: https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co...wns-life-railways-during-1980s-2552239?page=1

Some good photos there !

 

[Mat17]

Almost found a photo: https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co...wns-life-railways-during-1980s-2552239?page=1

Some interesting snaps there of a long lost past. Looking at these makes me really miss the old first gen units.

 

[Dave W]

Super thread!

For me, Centro-liveried 150s in the early-mid 90s, usually "up the Albion" from Cradley Heath (as I went with my uncle who lived there). As a teenager, the mouldy stench of the 153 on the Stour Town branch, when going on my own or on to Birmingham.

 

[takno]

Super thread!

For me, Centro-liveried 150s in the early-mid 90s, usually "up the Albion" from Cradley Heath (as I went with my uncle who lived there). As a teenager, the mouldy stench of the 153 on the Stour Town branch, when going on my own or on to Birmingham.

I would never have expected to miss those 153s, but coming back a few years later to experience the Parry People Mover made me feel quite nostalgic. I still preferred it back when there were still station buildings at the Town, and the mk1 DMUs were in place mind - I've never really cared for any of the sprinters

 

[Ken H]

Met cam DMU - the ones that would become class 101. nearly all locals in west yorks were those. But the trans pennines were significant to me.

 

[gaillark]

Possibly not meeting the OP's criteria but the train that takes me back to 8 or 9 years old (around 1989) would be the HST, despite our local line being almost exclusively the domain of 150/1s. Everybody knew the "Intercity 125" when you mentioned you were interested in trains.

Yes thats so true. Yes everybody knew of the InterCity 125.
I doubt in years to come that everybody will remember the IET! Such utter rubbish internally nobody will want to remember it.

 

[iphone76]

Class 309 to Clacton in Jaffa Cake and NSE liveries / interiors. Putting the suitcases and bags under the seats and thinking we were all that leaving London for our summer holidays. Then on the way back spotting our first red bus around the Romford area knowing we were back in London. (Early/Mid 1980s)

 

[Cowley]

Class 309 to Clacton in Jaffa Cake and NSE liveries / interiors. Putting the suitcases and bags under the seats and thinking we were all that leaving London for our summer holidays. Then on the way back spotting our first red bus around the Romford area knowing we were back in London. (Early/Mid 1980s)

309s looked superb in that livery.

 

[AJM580]

Class 47s with silver roofs on Mk2d stock, Class 105 dmus

 

[muddythefish]

The trains I most remember growing up alongside the Blackburn - Hellifield line were unfitted mixed freights, up to 60 wagons long, made up of a variety of box vans, open wagons, coal, bogie bolsters etc. They were slow moving and fascinating to watch as they lumbered past, usually hauled by a Black 5, 8F 2-8-0 or 9F steam locomotive. After the demise of steam English Electric Type 4s and BR Class Type 2s took over the work, the Type 2s often doubled headed as they often struggled with the heavy loads. Wonderful days.

 

[ScottGallagher]

West Coast mark 3 ,when intercity had that proper red interior in the late 80s up until Virgin took over additionally whatever the slam door 2 car deisel units that worked the Cumbrian Coast and the 142/156 when new that replaced them.

 

[Charlie2555]

Great Western Trains Intercity 125s with screaming Valenta engines. I got back into trains about 2011 and saw a few HSTs, thought I'd lost my hearing as I remember covering my ears due to that loud engine sound and no longer heard it!

 

[DiscoStu]

Class 310 EMU round my way.

Always loved the 303 units round Glasgow in the orange Strathclyde livery too.