Ripping yarns from gricers

In 1966 I was on holiday with my parents in Fort William. I asked them to "Pop over" to Aberdeen and see the A4's. We got there and asked to go in the shed, then I asked to go in the cab of Kingfisher - which then moved to the water tower. The driver then asked me if I wanted to go to Edinburgh with him.....I had to very sadly decline as I thought my parents would not like to drive back to Fort William via Edinburgh!

 

Of course railway knowledge helped at school an unusual way.
Two loco hauled traisn went through my home town about 1525/1530. Being useless at football and worse at cricket, I did a lot of cross country running.
There was a defined route and check in at a layby on a main road. (To stop any short cuts there was a reasonable chance that a teacher would just be having a break there just to ensure we did the full course.) Anyway, the loco hauled trains were a good time check to head back to the school and get through the showers and changed before the team sports players returned.

Eventually the sports master realised what was happening. His view - that's good observation, well done for working things to your advantage!

Cheers, Neil

 

That is a good point made about how railways and other transport affected our routine. From the age of 14 I used to spend time in the school summer holidays earning money helping on the farm where my uncle was farm manager. Providing I didn't go on a public road tractor driving was allowed at that age, I bet it isn't now! The midday meal, for some reason, known as dockey in the fens, was traditionally taken at 11.30 but no one used a watch, there was a train from Wisbech to March visible in the distance at about that time which was the cue for the break. It was always known as the Dockey train. Work finished in the evening for dinner at 4.30, signalled by the bus heading for Wisbech along the road about a quarter of a mile away. At harvest time work would recommence at around 5.30 and finish when the light got too dark.
One of my Aunts was porter signalman at Coldham, her alarm clock for the early shift was the early freight on the line that woke her up in time to get ready and walk from her cottage for the 6 am shift

 

Today marks 58 years since the end of Southern steam so I thought it would be a good subject to revive this thread. This is 34095 backing onto the stock of the 18.15 to Waterloo at Weymouth, the same train that I was on from Basingstoke when Royal Mail did 106mph at Fleet on June 26th. The date is July 7th and was my penultimate trip by steam, the last one was this engine’s back working the 02.45 Bournemouth Mail on which driver Gordon Porter said he was going to try for his last ‘ton’. He didn’t do it quite but the attempt down Christchurch Bank proved to be, shall we say, interesting.