Your earliest loco memory

Travelling from Bush Hill Park to Lower Edmonton (as was) in the guards van behind a N7/1 Tank aged about 3. About a year later geting on thr footplate of what I think was Flying Scotsman at Kings Cross (apparently we were related to someone senior at the station), a couple of yrears later travelling on the Class 305s soon after their introduction. Seeing a very dirty and what I thought at the time was a very old 0-6-0 tender loco pass through Bush Hill Park as late as 1964/5, no idea what type but it had a large dome

 

There are three early steam encounters that I remember.
1. When I was about 5 years old my father took me with him to Kings Cross station to see the A4's, nice, but I remember thinking that I'd have rather he'd taken me to Paddington.
2. When I was about 5 or 6 years old a driver letting me stand on the footplate of a GWR 14xx so my father could take my photo. (I only found out it was a 14xx years later when I found the photo).
3. Just after I'd started school we were going off on holiday and my father took me to the front of the train to see what was going to be pulling us. It turned out to be a Schools class, now knowing at that time very little about the names of loco classes I wasn't too impressed about being taken on holiday by a loco that I thought took children to school!

 

1958. 68923 simmering adjacent to Laisterdyke West Junction Signal Box. When and where it all began. Must have seen dozens of other locos that day, but it's this image that always comes to mind.

 

Not particularly locos, but going for walks in the park as a small child and watching CO/CP and R stock trains mixing with a diet of SR EMUs and occasional freights as they trundled through Southfields.

And, for steam, visiting the MHR from my grandparents house. No recollection of what locos, but the t-shirt with a picture of Bodmin was worn till I couldn't fit in it any more!

 

Standing on the footbridge at Hest Bank in August 1957 and seeing 46257 'City of Salford' on the 'Caledonian' picking up water from the troughs and soaking the front coach with the overflow.

 

Being on the St Albans branch platform at Watford Junction, and being terrified when the engine whistled. 1961 or 62.

 

Sometime in the late 1950s.
There is a picture of me on the path at the side of our house with a G2 on the embankment behind me.
My parents house at the time backed on to the original LNWR line from Arpley to Skelton Jct, by that time part of the MSC railway and still steam worked, with the new alignment on the embankment across a field. so steam was always 'there' from as early as I can remember though I couldn't say what the earliest loco I recall was.
Summer holidays were always in Perthshire, an annual trip on the Crewe-Perth before dad got his first car in 1961.
Happy days.

 

Not sure if a diesel counts on this thread but heregoes i was in leeds city station in mid 1980,s as a young toddler my 1st
encounter with a railway loco is a class 45 diesel came rolling in i was with my dad and he went up to the cab with me in the pushchair and asked the driver where he was going he replied london to scotland on a B.R. intercity train he offered 4 me to look in the cab of the peak but i was too scared wi how young i was, and thus my 1st encounter with steam traction engines, we had just been to the nostell wakefield traction engine rally earlier in the day making our way back to cleckheaton via leeds
Davo 56F

 

Whilst at Murrayfield, at the end adjacent to the railway line, two locos came off Haymarket shed together. They were 60004 William Whitelaw and 62690 The Lady of the Lake.

 

Like the Saggin' Dragon, dirty locos passing Byfleet & New Haw at speed, but there must have been some clean southern locos in the early 1960's? ( I do just remember the station being called West Weybridge.) More clearly, looking across the fields from New Haw village to freight trains climbing Byfleet curve to Byfleet & NH. What I now know to be S15's could be heard clearly, where other locos were more muffled.
The other clear memory from my early years was travelling to a holiday at West Bay beyond Bridport and being very impressed with an immaculate coat of glossy black paint and polished copper on the loco ( a Hall or Grange?) which hauled our train from Dorchester West to Maiden Newton.

Cheers, Neil

 

I’m not sure when mine was. The first vague recollections are around the age of three when I used to go with my dad to his allotment by the Bromley North Branch. The regular EMUs were interrupted in the afternoon by a light engine, a Hither Green C Class, going down to shunt the yard and I know I used to kick up a fuss if dad wanted to leave before I had seen it return with the branch freight. I remember we always got a wave from the engine crew.

One very vivid early memory was a trip to March for a family wedding in the month of March 1953, my father took me up to see loco at Liverpool St which was in clean green livery and seemed to be larger than the normal engines around the station. It ‘s name was Robin Hood. The driver invited us up into the cab and somewhere I have a very underexposed picture of me sitting in the driver’s seat wearing his greasetop. I now know that I had been on the footplate of nearly new Britannia no 70038. The train must have been a Norwich via Ely service and we would have changed at Ely for the final leg to March, probably behind a D16.

Although I remember nothing of either journey, my first train journey was to see my mother’s extended family in March. We would have travelled on a Southern 4SUB from Grove Park to London Bridge, taxi to Liverpool St and then, perhaps an Apple green B17 to Ely and a D16 on to our destination. I was six months old and the railways had six months to go before nationalisation. The following year on a similar journey a Kent coast train came through, the noise and rush of air in the confines of the station caused me to scream the place down. A station porter consoled my parents with the words, ‘don’t worry in a few years time he’ll be mad on trains’. Prophetic words indeed.

 

this reminded me of a subsequent trip from Stockport to St Pancras in 1958, with a Britannia on the front and me and Dad in the front compartment of a corridor coach. Water was taken at Stoke, and soon after leaving, we had our feet on the seats(!) to avoid the inches of water on the floor! Probably left the tank lid open. Seems to have been a common practice in steam days.

 

On 25th February 1962. My Father too me to see Sir Brian passing through Faversham station on the LCGB Kentish Venturer railtour. A lump of rust (or similar) fell off the tender and my Father picked it up. We still have it somewhere.

Sent from my SM-A105FN using Tapatalk

 

Sometime late 50s or very early 60s l can't have been older than 7 but a hazy recollection of a light engine stopped on the main line over ' Wee Lane' now called Glenfrome Road in Bristol. Having been brought up in the more LMS part of the city l was transfixed by a huge brass nameplate bearing the magical name The South Wales Borderers. Never forgotten it .

 

Who’d have thought Sir Brian would be so influential.

 

My first recollection of steam was on a holiday to Shanklin, I must have been about 8, I can remember the old taxi to Woking, the Nelson( 4 cor) to Portsmouth, the seats I recall were like huge arm chairs, standing waiting at Harbour station, then we boarded this ferry , that in its self was exciting, then we went down the wooden gangplank, and I saw my first steam engine up close, the bunker of an 02, I can remember being roughly dragged away, we had a train to catch, we crammed into this compartment, I was held spell bound by the panting air pump, I cant remember much else, apart the walk up the hill to the guest house my Aunt ran. that would have been 1964 , We went there every year, till 1970, but the final couple of years, my dad drove us over to the island, but I can remember summer 1966, and then when we went back in 1967, the electrics had taken over. that same year, we had a school trip to the island, and A teacher who was a rail enthusiast took by friend and I to St Johns , whilst the group was on Ryde sea front, and in the yard was Chale , we managed to get a look at it, the tank on one side was on the ground, but the cutters were no where to be seen, this was summer 1967 and 24 was further up the yard sheeted over with cab sheets preventing any entrance. we then caught the next electric back to esplanade .

 

Steam, seeing Leander somewhere nearish Carnforth when very small
Diesel? My parents house when I was born (76-81) backed onto the railway at Ecclestone Park. I could tell a 40 from a 47 by sound aged 4 (interestingly, no whistle, but it "thrubbled" a lot more).
Electric, my grandparents took me down to London in the same timeframe. As my Grandad was ex LNWR, we stopped to say hello to the driver and I was allowed up into the cab (I think). I remember the steps of the Electric (probably an 86?)

 

In the mid to late 50s my father took me into Liverpool Lime St to see what was going on as he had a general interest in transport and railways in particular. We were over in the platform 7/8 area when we heard a very loud and long chime whistle. I had never heard anything like a chime whistle before and the fact that it was echoing around the vast roof made it even more impressive to a youngster. The engine concerned was Britannia 70046 Anzac, I have no idea why the whistle was sounded as the train arrived as I never heard an arrival whistle again during umpteen visits to Lime St. It was however the beginning of my interest in railways and serious number collecting in 1961 when aged 11 I was allowed to travel alone around the city on my bike or bus.

 

Never heard a 40's signature described as a 'thrubble' before, but I know exactly what you mean! Excellent stuff

 

When I was very young (probably about 3 or 4) I was taken to the local Model Engineering Club layout. It was dual gauge - I think probably 2.5" / 3.5", or maybe 3.5" / 5" - and raised above the ground, so you sat astride the carriages for a circuit of the local park.

Roll forward a couple of years to my first visit to a preserved railway at the Bluebell. We were in the booking hall at Sheffield Park and a huge loco with a big shiny brass dome rolled past the window: I was terrified, because I was convinced you had to sit astride the top and it seemed a long way up! Took a long time for my parents to get me through the door ... I suspect it was the H or the C class.

At home it was all slam door multiple units on the local trains to London: mostly 4-VEPS I think. I remember being taken to Reading aged about 7 or 8 and seeing the Inter City 125s when they were new, of which the main thing I remember was the noise (and also the newly painted yellow lines on the platforms; I don't think they had those before the 125s came). Don't remember ever seeing a Western, though I guess it is just about feasible that I did. A bit later, I used to go up to London and elsewhere a bit in the mid to late eighties, and I regret now not paying more attention, since that was when the last of the traditional infrastructure was still visible but being rapidly swept away. The modern railway largely leaves me cold.

Tom