Your earliest loco memory

Must have been before i was 3 i have a vague recollection of sitting in my trolley i was born in 1965 watching this noisy smoking monster our home was right next to the Barrow in furness to carnforth line

 

http://www.brsince78.co.uk/rnw001.htm

 

Several childhood memories from the Dunfermline area in about 1956. Trains crossing the Forth Bridge of course. Also:
- Watching with Mum from an over-bridge as a goods train passed underneath, and the driver turning round and waving to us. I seem to recall the engine having a lowish tender, so most likely to have been an ex-NBR 0-6-0 of Class J35/36/37.
- Watching from Dunfermline Park as trains passed through Dunfermline Lower station. The station and approach lines are on a curve - I kept looking carefully trying to work out whether, as on my clockwork train set at home, the lines went in a complete circle!
- Seeing a train reverse onto the other line and then continue "wrong line" through the station. My Dad explained a new concept to me - "engineering works".

 

Cleethorpes for me in the late 50s and early 60s. Summer Sunday holiday traffic. B1s everywhere. K3s and the occasional K2, J11, and Robinson D11 (Director). The rarity of a Black 5, Crab, or 4F. Excursions from exotic places like Clowne, Moira, Kiveton Park, as well as the more regular Sheffield Victoria, Leicester Central and Leeds Central. Palls of black smoke, smuts in the eyes, six platforms full of nine or ten coach trains, progressively replaced by six more from the adjacent sidings and those further away at New Clee. A grandparents house parallel to the line in front of the New Clee sidings - with a rarely-visited attic, home to a pair of ancient binoculars - which could identify the numbers of J94 saddle tanks and their replacement diesel shunters, as well as the steam-powered fishing trawlers waiting for the tide to turn in the Humber estuary and enter the docks! Grimsby Town when the Cleethorpes pilot handled the last leg of the Kings Cross through train(I can still hear the initial wheelships echoing off nearby the brick walls and buildings as thirteen carriages were coaxed into movement by an ailing tender-first B1) - as well as Brocklesby with a Midland 4F on the fish train, and Immingham shed on a Sunday afternoon....and so much more!

 

Duchess of Hamilton going north through Kirkby Stephen at full tilt. Everything was shaking. Must of been late 80s.

 

The Duchess was out for overhaul between 1986 and 1989. Her last run before overhaul was over the S&C in late October '85 and her first run after was also over the S&C in April '90. Pity you only saw her going north, which is downhill. The southbound climb through Kirkby Stephen with a full load was as good as it got in those days and really did make the ground shake.

Peter

 

Or the earth move. Were the Duchess of Hamilton and Lady Hamilton the same person?

 

No

Peter

 

Shame. You could have had a lot of fun promoting a Lord Nelson / Duchess of Hamilton double header ...

Tom

 

Emma Lady Hamilton was the wife of Sir William Hamilton and famous as Lord Nelson's lover. The Duchess of Hamilton is the wife of the Duke of Hamilton a hereditary Scottish peer.

Peter

 

Must of been post 90 then. I was born 84 and remember the Carlisle-Kirkby Stephen shuttles with the standard 4 tank and the west Highland coaches, infact I remember them sitting in the siding at ksw and looking into the cab. God knows how dad knew it was there, probably word from Peter Walton (nice chap, sadly missed). Remember being bundled into the car to go see.

 

Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, in the summer of 1958, mesmerised by Nigel Gresley's wonderful machines.

 

While very young in the 1940s my father used to walk me up to the railway line at Inveresk on Sunday mornings to see three expresses in quick succession which would have been the 1100,1110 and 1120 from Edinburgh all Pacific hauled. The 1100 was for Kings Cross. About the time the last one passed a goods clanked by in the down direction often hauled by one of the S160 American 2-8-0s. I was born in 1940 and the S160s I believe went abroad after D-Day so I must be remembering when I was about 3 or 4. The fascination with steam has never left me and I retired to Somerset and signalled on the West Somerset for a number of years .

 

Bodmin Railway in 2000, Day Out With Thomas. Alfred as Ben on brakevan rides, Thomas and a 33 on the rear of the main set.

 

B4 Tanks running down West Quay Rd in Poole and shunting on the Quay.M7 Tanks shunting Poole goods and last but not least The green industrial Tanks on New Quay Hamworthy and Industrial Tank George Jennings on the Parkstone to South West Pottery siding

 

difficult to be precise, I have been a member of the SVR all my life, and my parents were taking me to the Valley, the Ffestiniog and the Rheidol as well as other lines, from the time I was well enough to be taken out (I spent my first six months in intensive care) but the first one I can definately remember is 80079 at Bridgnorth and my dad explaining to me why it "Didn't have a bunket" of course, it does but the profile of it makes it less obviois than a GWR style bunker, certainly to a todler, however I also have fairly early memeories of Erlstoke Manor, Gordon, Lady A. A Prairie (I think 5164) Hagley Hall, Leander, Linda, Blanche, Mountaineer, and the two fairlies (Which I simply knew as "The old Fairlie" and "The New Fairley") and all of those memories are from around the same time.

 

Pulling in to Chappel and Wakes Colne on the main line side, and seeing Thomas the Tank Engine out and about on the Museum line - must have been about 1996? That's the earliest I can remember, but there are photos of 1-2-year-old me with an engine on the Isle Of Wight, and I'm often reminded that we were on Holiday in Devon, drove in to Bodmin General car park and Thomas waiting there too.

I think it was a few years visiting Chappel and Mangapps before we explored other nearby lines, starting with what I remember being an excellent Bluebell Halloween event - having a birthday at that time of year helped when it came to choosing things to do, and I fondly remember going through the tunnel there with all the lights off, something they stopped doing in later years.

 

My very earliest memories were of a holiday in Ilfracombe, late 1950's unrebuilt Bulleid light pacifics (I thought they were A4's because they were "streamlined" and I was too young to know any better! There were some to see most days as we often walked up to see some horses in a field on the l/h side of the station (I think) looking towards London. I vaguely remember the journey down, it was overnight it seemed like, and a diversion on the way down due to heavy flooding, (the paper train? ....as there were no overnight trains from Waterloo).
It must have been late September as we went to a Harvest Festival at an Ilfracombe church.

A few years later we had a holiday staying in a caravan in Wareham, right by the river and used a rail rover to get about, I remember (I'm sure) a rebuilt MN at Wareham station, quite dirty it seemed and so huge and noisy.....safety valves probably, it seemed quite scary! I remember a trip to Swanage (must have been an M7 in hindsight), between Wareham and Corfe Castle the communication cord was pulled and we came to a stand, only time I've been on a train with that happening!
Great memories, but I just wish I could remember more about it! Turned me into a Bulleid fan for life though.....