If you could...

Go back to 56A Wakefield in the early 1960s to watch my Grandfather driving

 

..... and ride nearly as well!!

 

I have so many choices, some that have already been suggested by others like 3rd July 1938 to watch Mallard go by, the filming of the Titfield Thunderbolt film just so I could experience Lion in working order.
Being greedy I'd want to go and see my wee Barclay running back in about 1956 up at the gypsum quarry where it worked all its life. I'd also like to go back in time to experience my local line, the Furness Railway in its heyday and see the 4-4-0 express locos and the big Baltic tanks go by.

 

Go back to 1966 ish, armed with sufficient funds to buy a loco. The choice being either an A4, or a WD 2-8-0. And pick the WD!!

 

Ditto the HST??

 

My late father alluded to have travelled on one of these sets on the Selsey Tramway

 

£2 grand, whoch would have saved an LBSC K Class doesn't sound a lot nowadays, but trust me, it was a hell of a lot of money back in 1963!

 

How much for something like a J37?

 

Probs about the same. My TARDIS doesn't work either.

 

My TARDIS sort of worked today, I had a day out over to Norwich much as I love the sound of a 12CSVT power unit in a class 37, there were things like the smell and the hiss of the brakes, that really took me back to my yoof, it's a really strange thing to describe, but the slight tang of diesel fumes mixed in with toilet cleaner(!) and compressed air, really took me back today, sounds really weird but there's nothing quite like it!

 

And I blame the eardrum shattering sound of Whizzos under the roof at Paddington 50 years ago for my tinnitus .... despite which, the YouTube clip of "Western Champion" performing a full startup from cold at Blaenau Ffestiniog is still one of my favourites!

 

i'd like some of those pennies that got the 8F treatment

 

Racing through Dawlish behind a Peak..............

 

A ride on the entire Muddle & Go Nowhere.

And a ride on the Southwold Railway.

 

..... Smuggle the Falcon out of the scrapyard.

 

The Diesel Traction Group wanted to buy Falcon, but when BR bought it from Brush there was a clause in the contract that it couldn't be sold on to anybody else.

 

Not that long ago,but can I just go back to work? I never thought Id say this but I'm missing the 387 units opposite on the carriage sidings, and the 66 that said it was lunchtime.

 

If I could, I would go back to 1967,with enough money to buy W31 Off Kings , to stop it being cut up and try to by the last 02 at Newport at the time off Jolicliffes 33 wasn't it? hire a low loader to move both 24 and 31 to Newport

 

Back to when the peel to Douglas section of the isle of man railway was still in place, with a couple of million and buy it, some of they're coaches and a few of the beyer peacocks and run it as my own big trainset. Probably 14 Thornhill, 5 Mona.

 

I'd have loved to see ex-LBSC saloon 6986 make it to preservation, but back then, and rotting quietly in the sidings at Ryde St.Johns Road, converted for pw purposes, t'was deemed 'past it'. If only we'd known then just how much expertise all those magnificent restorers would go on to accumulate! Isn't hindsight wonderful?