Your very first rail journey with parents

[Harlesden]

Mine would have been Staines-Earley - Winter 1960 or 1961 (snow and plenty sparks) to visit my dying grandmother in the old Battle Hospital in Reading. What stock would it have been?

 

[tractakid]

Mine was a return from Milton Keynes to Bletchley, done specifically so I could have my first train journey!

 

[pemma]

I think mine would have been on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway.

Or first BR journey would have been Knutsford to Hale which was possibly on a 101.

 

[gordonthemoron]

the first one i can remember was an overnight from Barry to Newcastle in 63 or 64. Engine broke down somewhere near Derby

 

[stut]

Most likely on the Trans-Clyde routes to/from Blantyre ca 1975. Or possibly something around Paisley, but I suspect the former.

The first I remember? Oh, Chelmsford to Liverpool Street, probably around 1980. Hunting for a "rover ticket" in Broad Street. Non-corridor loco-hauled stock.

 

[glbotu]

Mine was either Paddington - Burnham (Bucks), to see family, or Putney - Clapham Junction, to see trains. I'm not sure which though.

 

[Sheepy1209]

About 1977, Retford to Kings Cross with my Dad.
I'd never even heard of Deltics back then

Earliest train trip would have been maybe '73 or '74, on a Lincolnshire schools charter to Newcastle - a single train picking up all along the Joint Line - I joined at Gainsborough Lea Road. How we all survived I don't know; from memory it was a long train, maybe 10+ coaches. Slam doors, no central locking (never mind selective opening), full of primary school kids picking up at platforms normally used by 2-car DMUs.

 

[bicbasher]

I travelled mainly by car with my parents and while I can't remember exactly when my first journey was, I can remember travelling on thumpers in the mid 80s to London Bridge or West Croydon from Forest Hill.

I also remember seeing my first Class 455 unit and seeing push button doors for the first time in the bay platform at West Croydon.

By the time I can remember using trains regularly, they were mainly 455 and 456 units.

 

[al.currie93]

Ockley to Dorking with my dad to meet my gran. Train was a Network Southeast Class 455

 

[dzug2]

Bedford to St Pancras in steam days. 1950mumble.

I am sure there must have been earlier ones that I don't remember

 

[ian959]

Wolverhampton Low Level to Paddington in about 1962 or 1963, Class 52 Western with Mark 1s. A classic train in my view!

 

[JackClare]

Oldham Werneth to Manchester Victoria on a 142 I think. I'm not sure when the loco-hauled trains stopped operating up there

Jack

 

[Monty]

Mine would have been Staines-Earley - Winter 1960 or 1961 (snow and plenty sparks) to visit my dying grandmother in the old Battle Hospital in Reading. What stock would it have been?

In the early 60s the Reading line would be mainly run by BILs and NOLs.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Unmemorable but first trips would have been on the North Kent lines from Strood to Charing Cross. That would have been EPBs.

My first memorable journey was being sent from Euston to Birmingham to my Grand parents. I was around 9 years old iirc and in charge of my younger sister so probably Mark2 Coaches (1969) - I remember sitting with my sister at a vast table seat !. My mum showed me how to read the departure indicator at Euston in case I had to get from Strood myself next time. And my mum wonders why I got interested in trains !.

The most tantalising memory was summer 1974. I was outside Oban station watching a few locos and trains in action. I started spotting a few months later and spent ages trying to visualise the numbers of very very rare 26s and/or 27s. I lived in Strood so was never going to see them again !.

 

[Waldgrun]

Mine would have been Staines-Earley - Winter 1960 or 1961 (snow and plenty sparks) to visit my dying grandmother in the old Battle Hospital in Reading. What stock would it have been?

Most likely to have been 2 Bil class 401 or 2 Hal class 402 type stock

 

[Peter Sarf]

Wolverhampton Low Level to Paddington in about 1962 or 1963, Class 52 Western with Mark 1s. A classic train in my view!

By the early 1970s they were running to Birmingham New Street instead and I would wait for my favorite locos to appear whizzing in the tunnel. That is where I got hooked on WESTERNs .

 

[cuccir]

My earliest rail memory is of a great day on Blaenau Ffestiniog, though I may well have been on Haverthwaite-Lakeside before that.

First journeys on the 'proper' rail network that I recall are day trips using the now-withdrawn Barrow-in-Furness to Liverpool trains. I'd have been 10 I reckon - so this would be 1996. Any idea if that would be with British Rail or was it First North Western by that point?

 

[JackClare]

My earliest rail memory is of a great day on Blaenau Ffestiniog, though I may well have been on Haverthwaite-Lakeside before that.

First journeys on the 'proper' rail network that I recall are day trips using the now-withdrawn Barrow-in-Furness to Liverpool trains. I'd have been 10 I reckon - so this would be 1996. Any idea if that would be with British Rail or was it First North Western by that point?

According to wikipedia FNW started up on March 2nd 1997, so you probably would have been on a Regional Railways North Western service

 

[tivoli]

Must have been Euston to Holyhead, boat to Dun Laoghaire then from Dublin Westland Row to Westport in 1954 with my mum and sister, only a baby so clearly don't remember it, but have a letter my dad wrote to my mum while were there, so even have the date.

Strictly speaking, I guess we would have preceded journey with Kilburn High Road to Euston, so that may have been the first.

 

[Wyvern]

Overnight from Derby to St. Ives in Cornwall on a train packed with troops in 1941 or thereabouts.

 

[DXMachina]

Stevenage to York on one of the first ECML HSTs

Still remember how impressive the acceleration was, and trying to see out the window in the end doors as I was too small (very crammed train, no seats at first)

 

[another smith]

This is quite an apt thread for me as my first railway journeys were with my grandfather who sadly passed away recently

The first journey I can remember was Birkdale to Liverpool Central on a BR grey blue 507/8 in the late 80's but I remember going to Lime Street and seeing a HST for the first time. From then, hooked.

 

[D841 Roebuck]

I've been told I was taken as a baby from Goole to Hull. Possibly the summer of 66.

My parents used the train a lot for pleasure and holidays usually involved a train ride or several. I remember Exeter to Plymouth with D1032, Interlaken to various mountain railways in the vicinity and a cab ride through the Simplon Tunnel.

 

[EM2]

Central Line from Woodford, almost certainly to either Newbury Park or Gant's Hill.
First one I can remember is my Dad taking me on the RH&DR, aged about four.

 

[Muzer]

Don't honestly remember - I was born in Denmark, so must have been on trains there and/or across Europe, I suppose. First one I remember is after we'd moved back to England, Windsor & Eton Central to Slough, would have been mid-90s. I assume that would still have been a Thames Turbo...


Having said this, I do have VERY vague memories of a VERY long train journey (in my mind) - probably would have been in Europe, it might have even been one of those trains that goes onto a boat, but I might be wrong there. That might have been earlier.

 

[talltim]

I have no idea, my parent don't drive so probably somewhere from Cambridge where I lived until I was 2, then somewhere from Hatfield, probably to WGC. My first full sentence was on the overbridge at Hatfield station.
"Two trains gone, one train come"
An early train memory is having my first Chinese takeaway going home from the Severn Valley on a DMU with doors to every seating bay. It much have been pre-1980 because my sister wasn't born.

 

[steamybrian]

The earliest journey I can remember was a steam hauled Victoria- Herne Bay service around 1960. It was a summer Saturday so the train was crowded with holidaymakers. As a child I had stand in the corridor the whole way.
Around the same time I travelled from East Croydon to Victoria (steam hauled) and then by underground Victoria-Westminster.

The earliest memory was in the late 50s and being taken onto the platform at Thornton Heath station to do some train spotting. We had to purchase a platform ticket for the princely sum of one (old) penny (= in todays decimal money less than half a penny).

 

[generalvegitable]

the first trip that I remember (I may have done some before then but I was too young to remember) would have been on the Leighton Buzzard narrow gauge railway in the mid-ish 1990s, when there was a quarry next to pages park station rather than a housing estate. little did I know at the time that 16-18 years later I would be volunteering there

 

[Teaboy1]

Ooohh its a long long time ago but was Royston Midland Road to Blackpool Central via Leeds & (change at Manchester) in about 1961. Black 5's abounded and so did Fairburn tanks if my Allens ABC can be relied on !! Compartment stock IIRC and I probably stood all the way in mi' short trousers.
I dont remember it but gran told me a porter carried mi off train coming back an down those stairs [twixt rail tracks] next to gas works Midland road Royston and then Yorkshire Traction bus back 'om to mi aunty Maggies at Grimethorpe.

 

[mountaineer]

Blaenau Ffestiniog Central, pannier and two non corridors , to Bala, then on to Ruabon,and Paddington, remember a King getting on somewhere, or at least the strange front end bogie, would be 1957 ,