who or what got you into railways and what was your first kop/haulage

[faltskog36abba]

My first love of Railways started when I was a child in Manchester in the 70s. We used to live in Miles platting- Next to the Philips park - Ashbury's goods line, I used to watch for hours on my top bunk watching class 31's trundle along. My Nan and Grandad used to live in Collyhurst next to Miles platting bank and I was forever on their balcony watching the endless trains pass by. Finally we moved to Newton heath - near enough from our back garden to see the class 47's heading to Newcastle and Liverpool.. Happy days.

 

[DerekC]

My dad, who took me down to see the trains passing on the WCML at the age of 5 or so, while staying with my mum's parents (probably to get himself and me out of the way). His railway knowledge was a bit out of date because I recall him being upset because the "Claughtons" had all gone! Earliest memory of a specific train for some reason was an ex-LNWR 0-8-0 (no idea of the number) chugging slowly up the gradient towards Tring with a long tail of coal empties. But my first haulage was almost certainly an N6 on the Lea Valley line where we lived. And what really got me hooked was my Hertford North quad-art with an N2 at the front overtaking A3 60055 "Woolwinder" on a down express in Copenhagen Tunnel. The firebox glow, and those huge wheels going round just outside the window!! (Woolwinder got her own back as we were stopping at Finsbury Park, with a contemptuous roar!)

 

[Justin Smith]

I remember walking into the mess room at Exeter st David’s depot with my stepbrother, we were probably about 14 and asking if we could look around, the guy said “Yeah, just don’t fall down one of the pits.”

I’m another one that’s been interested in railways for as long as I can remember. My father’s into railways too and I remember early trips by rail in the 1970s when I was little.

Wonderful story, a bit different from my experience at one or two heritage railways. I was actually a member, and, in fact, for one, back in 2004, I had recently been working on D9009 which was still there at the time, yet they wouldn't let me and my Dad have look round. "Come back on an open day" ! I left the organisation within a week.

My dad, who took me down to see the trains passing on the WCML at the age of 5 or so, while staying with my mum's parents (probably to get himself and me out of the way). His railway knowledge was a bit out of date because I recall him being upset because the "Claughtons" had all gone! Earliest memory of a specific train for some reason was an ex-LNWR 0-8-0 (no idea of the number) chugging slowly up the gradient towards Tring with a long tail of coal empties. But my first haulage was almost certainly an N6 on the Lea Valley line where we lived. And what really got me hooked was my Hertford North quad-art with an N2 at the front overtaking A3 60055 "Woolwinder" on a down express in Copenhagen Tunnel. The firebox glow, and those huge wheels going round just outside the window!! (Woolwinder got her own back as we were stopping at Finsbury Park, with a contemptuous roar!)

I would love to have seen express steam running, but I am still very nostalgic about BR blue diesels. I used to hate (what are now "Heritage") DMUs but I would love to travel on one now, in the front with a view forwards*, on a service train now !

* Having said that, even in the 70s, many drivers would pull down the blinds......

 

[Harvester]

I can’t remember exactly when I became interested in railways, but it was at an early age when I was growing up close to the Durham coast line. My first memory of haulage was when my dad took me to Sunderland, and we returned on the Newcastle to Colchester train, as far as West Hartlepool, hauled by A2/2 60502 Earl Marischal. A year or two later (1958) I travelled to Edinburgh Princes Street on a school excursion, which was hauled throughout from Stockton, and back, by B1 61030 Nyala. It was early 1959 before I started train spotting, after acquiring a copy of an Ian Allan ABC, and the first loco underlined was A3 60081 Shotover copped on the early evening Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street train, which back then ran via the Durham coast.

 

[contrex]

1925 type SUB units running past our house in Herne Hill, noticed by me from about 1955 onwards. Black 5s from St Pancras to Grandma's near Derby.

 

[Class15]

Like many others, interested from a very young age because my dad was. Didn’t really become a spotter until a few years ago, and even now I am not a ‘typical’ spotter.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Several colleagues at school were already spotting, and I joined them one Saturday. First cop was D3205, the station pilot at Lincoln. First cab the same day, D6966 (taken off the Harwich boat train for some reason that day - usually it ran through)

In addition to the daily Newcastle - Norwich and Harwich- Manchester services which called at Lincoln in he late morning (usualy a 40 and a 37 respectively) and the return workings in he evenings, there was quite a procession of summer saturday specials from various parts of the North to Skegness, Yarmouth etc in those days, many of them with rarities (for our area) from Longsight - the highlight was a pair of 25s on the Manchester-Yarmouth which came off at Lincoln to be replaced, usually by a 31, and would then return to Manchester on a train from Yarmouth after another loco swap. Often good opportunities for "cabbing".

My first recorded haulage would have been a class 114 to the local spotting mecca of Newark (or possibly a 104 to Derby, I forget)

 

[trainmania100]

Original Thameslink 319s would have been my first haulages.

 

[Spamcan81]

During school holidays in the 50s I’d go with my dad to take fish offal and left overs to a pig farmer near Arlesey station. If the crossing gates were shut we’d wait for the trains to go through before heading home. Back then I’d be more interested in counting the trucks and carriages than the loco number. The first number I remember recording was at Hitchin in 1961. Our train back from London was hauled by 60014 Silver Link.

 

[Peter Sarf]

It was a Raymond that got me into trains circa 1974. His family had been family friends but moved away. One day they came to visit and he showed me his Ian Allen books. I went out and bought same - I can still remember the sense of excitement getting them. First was the Locomotives book with an 87 on the front. The books were the constituent parts of the combined volume.

First haulage most likely EPBs on the North Kent lines from Strood to Charing Cross. Infact they would have been my first sighting at Strood station. Although I quickly moved on the Birmingham New Street every time we visited my maternal grandparents in Sutton Coldfield.

My first memorable train ride was before interest set in. Parents sent myself and my younger sister from Euston to Birmingham New Street. I remember looking out on the RHS somewhere near Queens Park and seeing buildings (flats) built out over the cutting on stilts. They are still there to this day and I look for them and remember. Probably a mark one coach or early mark two I feel - I can remember the open feeling inside and looking across. I would have been about ten (1970) or younger.

I do not recall it but my Father used to take me to watch the trsains go by at Bushey and Oxley back in about 1961 when I was one. I keep meaning to go and have a look using my over 60s Oyster. See if anything jogs the memory. The place we lived at was nearby according to the address I have. I probably saw 10000 ad 10001. Later in Sutton Park I remember being near the line and a thumping great thud thud - thud thud as a beast with a nose on it lumbered by. That will be my first railway memory - I like to thing that might have been 10000 or 100001.

As a pre-school boy, I was staying with relatives at Worsley, where a neighbour was a driver at Patricroft shed. This enabled a depot visit in June '68 - apparently quite common for young children, so I've read in books about the end of steam in Salford - and getting on the footplate of a Black 5 or Standard 5 is presumably what launched my lifelong obsession with and career (so-called) in the railway. First known cop was Western Druid (D1067) at Birmingham New St in summer '75, which I had to Banbury on a day trip with my mum. I was 9.

D1067 Western Druid at New Street was my first memorable loco cabbed. Quite possibly Summer 1975. From that day on it has been my favourite locomotive. I really feel a sense of loss at the Westerns going. They were the first class I watched ebb away, arguably my first bereavement so to speak.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Although I did not start avidly collecting numbers until I was 13, I have several earlier recollections, such as

• seeing pre-war SUBs at London Bridge when visiting relatives
• being taken to see the Flying Scotsman at Lincoln in around 1964
• travelling on the Lincoln to Grantham line several times before its closure in 1966,
• travelling to Millers Dale and on the Hope Valley Line in 1966 - still a lot of steam around then
• using the North Country Continental from Lincoln to Manchester in 1967, watching the 76s when staying at the Youth Hostel near Woodhead, and electric haulage from Dinting to Sheffield Victoria on the return - also being allowed in the cab of a DMU between Retford and Lincoln
• Deltic haulage Berwick to York with a friend - it was his enthusiasm that got me interested enough to buy my first Combined Volume

But I am told it started much earlier. For the first year of my life we lived near the Clapham cutting, and my mother would take me in my pram to watch the trains, ostensibly to wave at Uncle Freddie, who was a driver based at Salisbury. I have no recollection of this, but was strangely drawn to buy my first flat overlooking that same cutting twenty years later - both Uncle Freddie and his West Country Pacifics were long gone by then - Class 50s were the order of the day by then.

 

[Calthrop]

Things of which I have posted in previous threads on Railway History and Nostalgia -- anyway: born in 1948, lived for first decade of my life in Spalding, Lincolnshire: convergence-point then, of three secondary (? tertiary) cross-country routes. Plus, a number of holidays staying with relatives in the Chester area: a fair amount of train travel in both these venues, and between them (using the Harwich -- Manchester boat express). In my early years, all this
was busily in use, and all-steam: which I found enchanting. It got me hooked on the rail scene; which passion has lasted -- though for me, end of steam and demise of majority of the most delightful parts of the system, have turned that real-life scene in Britain, pretty dull and bleak -- if I'd been born only ten or a dozen years later, suspect that I would not have been a railway enthusiast.

My parents were not notably "into" railways -- though my father, a mechanical engineer, had a certain degree of interest in all powered transport; but they were supportive of my rail passion. Also, in the earlier 1950s we didn't have a reliable family car: hence, as above, a goodly quantity of train travel. Think it likely that my first-ever train journey -- the experience remembered only fragmentarily, but cherished -- was a return excursion (not an "enthusiast" thing -- for "real people" who wanted a day at the seaside) Spalding -- Hunstanton via Sutton Bridge and "the Lynns" -- motive power deduced as highly probably, an Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0. (This was a special, happening on a Sunday -- thus, no regular services running on the Midland & Great Northern Joint system on that day.)

Despite the overall era, loco-number-spotting passed me by; I was a somewhat solitary kid -- am also borderline innumerate: was never able to see point or interest in the numbers-collecting thing. Was, even, decidedly slow in getting much of a "handle" on the different steam classes. Am content to reckon myself in the same category here, as my hero Bryan Morgan: loving the romance of the overall railway -- especially for me, steam -- "thing"; but very un-technically-minded, and not much concerned, re self, with that side of the subject.

 

[Pigeon]

Thomas the Tank Engine.

(I'm not ashamed to admit it, even if everyone else is )

And I guess my first "cop" would have to be 92003 Black Prince. If it counts as such. It is at least the first specific loco I remember seeing; I remember being rather disappointed as I had been told "we're going to see Gordon" and it plainly wasn't Gordon or even a close relative. I'd probably been on the Talyllyn already by then but I don't remember it now.

Such a steam-based introduction led me to be rather dismissive of the dieselised railway and consider it lacking in interest, until a school friend convinced me that this was not the case. Even so, I still never had any interest in multiple units beyond the view out of the front available on the old DMUs, and now consider that the multiple-unit-ised railway has lost nearly all the factors which once both aroused my interest, and enabled my enjoyment of simply travelling on it.

Kind of a different world back then, i remember wandering into the Bescot depot office (i was about 12) and asking if someone could show me around the depot.

And being told to sod off.

Eh, I just used to wander round Bescot depot. Never anyone there, except maybe one or two other cranks doing the same thing.

 

[AJM580]

Interest started when i got my first train set aged 10, then through my dad & some mates at school got interested in the big railway. Can remember riding 4-SUBs circa 1973 and school trips to London with 47s. First recorded haulage was 37099 Norwich - York on a schools special in 1981. First cop - 47130 at Norwich

 

[pokemonsuper9]

I would say it very slowly grew, I'd been using trains pretty much my whole life, so they were always around, but in Wigan seeing/hearing the Pendolinos was always something special, even if I didn't consider the Pacers anything special at the time, I think there was never not a focus of trains for me (why is this a common enough autistic trait to be known).

The first true spotting journey I did was the 13th of August 2019, where inspired by this Geoff Marshall video, we went to go find a 195 (i.e. stand around at Oxford Road for a bit), leading to this photo of 195119 (slightly cropped from original to remove people in corner of shot).
My notes have 195117 as the first ridden unit but I can't seem to find any photos and I'm sure we went on one from Oxford Road to Picc on one the same day, but I didn't start taking numbers until 2022 so must've gotten that info from somewhere.

It was already clear that I had an interest in trains before this, (the photo of 142003 currently as my phone and PC background was taken earlier than the above).

 

[Ostrich]

Like many others, probably my Father sparked my childhood interest in trains. Aged around 7 or 8, we used to visit his foster-mum in Sheet, Petersfield, and walking down to Sheet level crossing, we'd watch the Portsmouth-line EMUs positively hurtling down the slope to Petersfield station . 2-BILs and 4-CORs, I think, although happy to be corrected.

Annual holidays, from Birmingham Snow Hill to Bournemouth and Rhyl, probably marked my first ventures into spotting, and from memory, my first photos (with a Brownie) were of 61004 Oryx and 70023 Venus working holiday specials at Llandudno Junction. Oryx was quite a coup for a young Brummie!

 

[70014IronDuke]

I can’t remember exactly when I became interested in railways, but it was at an early age when I was growing up close to the Durham coast line. My first memory of haulage was when my dad took me to Sunderland, and we returned on the Newcastle to Colchester train, as far as West Hartlepool, hauled by A2/2 60502 Earl Marischal. A year or two later (1958) I travelled to Edinburgh Princes Street on a school excursion, which was hauled throughout from Stockton, and back, by B1 61030 Nyala. It was early 1959 before I started train spotting, after acquiring a copy of an Ian Allan ABC, and the first loco underlined was A3 60081 Shotover copped on the early evening Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street train, which back then ran via the Durham coast.

Was Shotover a Gateshead loco? I remember I copped it at Darlington in 62 or 63, though I can't actually remember the event as such, just that summer holiday I saw a string of 'wanted' A3s such as Shotover and Captain Cuttle. Some of the A3s in the north-east and Neville Hill had the best names of the lot. (Nothing like as powerful as an MN though )

 

[Leogilbert007]

I’m turning 18 this year and have pretty much always been interested in trains, this interest deepening as i got older. My first London flat (born in NI) was on Ferndale Road, with the garden directly overlooking the SEML between Brixton and Clapham, and I remember my grandmother building a ramp+platform for me to watch trains. As I got older my interest intensified and I became interested in sociology and geopolitics, namely how trains link population centres and drive (ha!) social mobility. Nowadays I want to work (hopefully within a nationalised GBR with HS2 up and running!!) as either a train driver or a member of ticket office staff. I spend pretty much all my spare time going up and down the country on trains and visiting random places

P.s. looking for a 17-18yo comrade for a UK rail-trip this summer, PM me if interested

 

[Harvester]

Was Shotover a Gateshead loco? I remember I copped it at Darlington in 62 or 63, though I can't actually remember the event as such, just that summer holiday I saw a string of 'wanted' A3s such as Shotover and Captain Cuttle. Some of the A3s in the north-east and Neville Hill had the best names of the lot. (Nothing like as powerful as an MN though )

Shotover was a Neville Hill loco, from 1949 until its withdrawal on 1st October 1962. The five A3s allocated there in 1959 (60036/74/81/84/86) covered the principal Liverpool-Newcastle workings, the ‘North Briton’ and the ‘Queen of Scots‘, between Leeds and Newcastle. My first A3 haulage was behind 60074, - explains my choice of username. After the fitting of Kylchap double blastpipe and chimneys the A3s were excellent free steaming locos, which could be driven hard, rode well, and were very fast, with few steam equals on express passenger work. This modification unfortunately came a little too late in their careers!

 

[BeeBus]

My earliest spotting memory was at quite a young age, my interest was definitely encouraged by my father. We lived alongside the Greenfield to Oldham line (closed 1964) which passed the bottom of our garden, but unfortunately in a cutting so you only saw the train if you were at that end of the garden. One day I was and one of Lees shed's Austerities came past - 90671 - and I was still at the stage where I needed my father's assistance to find it in my ABC! The line didn't see much traffic, it was mainly used for light engine movements to and from Lees shed. The one exception was a Leeds to Wavertree parcels train routed via Oldham which was worked by one of Farnley Junction's Jubilees. As a result Bihar and Orissa (particularly) plus Resolution, Minotaur, Napier, and Sturdee became etched in my memory. This was the one train on the line which seemed to come at a predictable time.

Haulage wasn't generally something I recorded at the time (and in any case was largely confined to local DMUs) but I do have a vivid memory of joining our train on holiday in 1959 at Manchester London Road, as it then was (just), with Jubilee 45670 "Howard of Effingham" at the front. We travelled down to Dawlish with a couple of changes of motive power en route and of course there was no shortage of interesting trains passing through Dawlish.

My memories are much more of the mundane everyday railway. Lees shed was described as a "Bread and Butter" shed in the first issue of British Railways Illustrated magazine and it was operations of that nature I encountered much more and still interest me more today, rather than main-line expresses. Give me a shed full of WDs any day!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

A group of friends were always on Crow Hall railway bridge 4 miles north of Preston. They showed me Ian Allan locoshed books and told me where I could buy 1. So I did and then started. My first cop iirc was a double headed four hundreder as we called them - later class 50s. March 1970. D412 and D419 (later 500012 and 50019) on I assume a London-Glasgow train. My first haulage was D420 from Preston- Crewe later that year.

 

[Johnnie2Sheds]

My dad bought me a Triang jinty for Christmas in 1963 with a five plank wagon, tank wagon and a brakevan. Plus an oval of track, controller and a Heybeard battery charger to run it. He worked shifts, so to keep the house quiet my mother would take me to the station, in my pushchair, to look at the trains. I remember 9Fs on Stewart and Lloyds trains to Corby, Jinties on PICK UP goods. Two diesels I remember were D99 & D100 probably for their names. My life changed forever, though when I turned up at Paddington to hear the sound of Maybach music in 1972!

 

[Sun Chariot]

As a youngster near the Midland Main Line through the '70s, I suppose my interest started with regular sights of Peaks and Duffs that passed a local recreational area and - just - visible from my bedroom.
A visit to Quainton Road (as it was called at the time) in 1978 - complete with a photo of me looking cautiously at a steam loco's large driving wheels - may have stimulated a little more interest.
Family visits to grandmother in Exmouth meant summertime beach activities and loud diesels passing Dawlish during the latter 1970s and first half of the 1980s.
My mid teens were a mix of parent-disapproving music, BR's GWR150 events, plus first forays of depot visits and railtours.
It all went downhill from there!

I remember walking into the mess room at Exeter st David’s depot with my stepbrother, we were probably about 14 and asking if we could look around, the guy said “Yeah, just don’t fall down one of the pits.”

Happy days My brother and I did similar at Eastfield, 1990, during a week-long track bashing Scottish Rail Rover. We had failed to get our depot permit in time, so we walked up to the first office we saw, held our 'hi-vis' vests and 35mm cameras aloft and asked if we could look round.
A gnarly weather beaten railman told us to keep our eyes and ears open for moving engines, then waved us on. Bliss!

 

[Peter Sarf]

My dad bought me a Triang jinty for Christmas in 1963 with a five plank wagon, tank wagon and a brakevan. Plus an oval of track, controller and a Heybeard battery charger to run it. He worked shifts, so to keep the house quiet my mother would take me to the station, in my pushchair, to look at the trains. I remember 9Fs on Stewart and Lloyds trains to Corby, Jinties on PICK UP goods. Two diesels I remember were D99 & D100 probably for their names. My life changed forever, though when I turned up at Paddington to hear the sound of Maybach music in 1972!

Ah yes - the Maybach music. I was exposed to it at Birmingham New Street about 1974 when staying with the grandparents. It meant that visits to London from my home in Medway were bent Westwards to Old Oak Common and I totally ignored the likes of Liverpool Street. So I majored on Kings Cross, St Pancras, Euston, Willesden Junction (just sign in and be careful) and bunking into Old Oak Common from the gap in the canal wall. Not sire I went to Paddington and certainly never knew to go out to Royal Oak sadly.

 

[Harvester]

So I majored on Kings Cross, St Pancras, Euston, Willesden Junction (just sign in and be careful) and bunking into Old Oak Common from the gap in the canal wall.

So that popular gap still existed in 1974. I bunked Old Oak Common twice (summer 1963 and 1964) via that route, and would have thought that after ten years, the authorities would have got round to fixing it!

 

[Peter Sarf]

So that popular gap still existed in 1974. I bunked Old Oak Common twice (summer 1963 and 1964) via that route, and would have thought that after ten years, the authorities would have got round to fixing it!

I think that "entrance" lasted until CrossRail took over !.

 

[102 fan]

Being held up aged 2 by my dad to watch the RPSI 'Portrush Flyer'. My first haulage was a little more pedestrian, an NIR Class 80 from Holywood to Belfast.

 

[Mat17]

No idea what the first train I went on was. I would guess that it would have been a first gen DMU sometime in 1986, probably a 114, 111 or 101. It might even have been a Craven's for all I know. Whatever was running around Retford in the late 80s.

 

[nw1]

Secondary-school commuting was what really kick-started my interest, before that I had little or no interest though I did have a vague interest in the Underground network when visiting London in latter primary-school years.

My first unit would, if the service stuck to diagrammed stock on my first day at secondary school, have been a CIG, and my first haulage would have been a 47 on a Cross-Country, though I didn't get into recording individual numbers until shortly after that. First loco haulage I know the identity of was 47482 on 2 July 1983 on the 0805 Portsmouth-Manchester.

(Actually, my first unit technically would likely have been a 304 when I was very young, but that was many years before I developed an interest in railways).

 

[Big Jumby 74]

Earliest actual memories for me being a mix of summer holidays down the Isle of Wight, when as a wider family, including both sets of grandparents, we would rent a whole house for the week or two, these being a mix of at Ventnor and Shanklin for the most part, so it was a case of much luggage, crowds etc and 02's up front.
More mundane memories from those times revolve around family drum in Brentford and a short walk to the footbridge off Brook Road over the Brentford loop, where I have vivid memories of standing exactly above the four foot to get the most benefit from a whatever steam hauled freight was working from/to Feltham yard. Can still see it now, an approaching train, which after passing under the bridge one was left in a complete fog-out of smoke, couldn't see a thing for what seemed like ages!
Only in later days did I take an interest in spotting (thanks to others), and spent the late afternoon/early evening taking numbers - first noted unit and loco wise (as far as surviving records go) being 4-Vep 7709 and EDL 74007.