First memories of a London terminus?

[D6130]

Alton..so what! Town with supermarket. Like any other.

Ah, but......it has a long history of brewing, several good pubs and, IMHO, one of the best heritage railways in the country!

 

[MarkWi72]

Euston's scruffy platforms in early 1970s. Doesn't seem all that much different now!

Yep. That’s my memory. And the smell of Euston.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Yep. That’s my memory. And the smell of Euston.

Concentrated 'Eau de bin juice'?

 

[Busaholic]

Now that I know all these lines & locations like the back of my hand including Wessex’s Bournemouth & Weymouth the excitement & thrill have long gone.
Alton..so what! Town with supermarket. Like any other.

Doesn't it have Towers as well?

 

[londonbridge]

Can’t remember my first one but this gives me an opportunity to ask a question without starting a separate thread. I remember arriving into London Victoria and an announcement that there would be a short delay before the doors were released. Once the train came to a stop this delay would be anything up to half a minute or so before you could open the doors. This no longer happens, why did it use to be the case and how/when/why was it changed? I may very well have asked this question previously and have just forgotten about doing so…..

 

[Killingworth]

Can’t remember my first one but this gives me an opportunity to ask a question without starting a separate thread. I remember arriving into London Victoria and an announcement that there would be a short delay before the doors were released. Once the train came to a stop this delay would be anything up to half a minute or so before you could open the doors. This no longer happens, why did it use to be the case and how/when/why was it changed? I may very well have asked this question previously and have just forgotten about doing so…..

Earlier compartment stock had slam doors that were normally opened before the train had stopped in the station and people routinely jumped out before it stopped moving. Many of us often did! Having to be released wasn't popular at first and took some time to be accepted. The delay probably still bugs a lot of us but it's safer.

 

[Bald Rick]

Can’t remember my first one but this gives me an opportunity to ask a question without starting a separate thread. I remember arriving into London Victoria and an announcement that there would be a short delay before the doors were released. Once the train came to a stop this delay would be anything up to half a minute or so before you could open the doors. This no longer happens, why did it use to be the case and how/when/why was it changed? I may very well have asked this question previously and have just forgotten about doing so…..

Simple version - Because Victoria (Central side) is ‘underground’, the GPS for the Selective Door Opening often would not realise th train was in Victoria, and the driver had to type in the station code to enable all the doors to be released correctly. This was resolved by installing a better system with balsies etc.

 

[Bungle158]

Victoria Central side around 1956
As a very small chap, I was amazed to see guards dispatching from from the platform and the climbing into the slowly moving train. I decided then and there that l wanted to be a guard. No driver fantasies for me. I did make it, though by the time l joined, such high jinks were a firm no no.

 

[Vespa]

London Euston 1987 just starting out and it was the early days of the Yuppie era, I had aspirations to go into stock trading, my own mobile phone, Porsche 911, flat at Canary Wharf and it was a recce trip to check out opportunities, got into college to study banking only to find Black Wednesday has put a stop to it.

I remember the Menzies paper shop, Sock Shop and Tie Shop in the station concourse, the green floor is exactly the same as it was then.

 

[norbitonflyer]

As I was born in SW London and my mother's parents lived in SE London, and neither family had a car, so I probably travelled through Waterloo many times at a very young age, but I don't remember any of that.
We moved north when I was a toddler and I have a few recollections of London Bridge and Kings Cross during trips back down south to visit the grandparents when I was still quite young, as well as going to Waterloo during one such visit to meet an aunt off a train from Devon (West Country Pacific, I recall). I also recall being fascinated by a Hastings diesel unit (of all things) at Waterloo East.

 

[AM9]

Earlier compartment stock had slam doors that were normally opened before the train had stopped in the station and people routinely jumped out before it stopped moving. Many of us often did! Having to be released wasn't popular at first and took some time to be accepted. The delay probably still bugs a lot of us but it's safer.

It might miff the first person to the door but in compartment (and semi) stock, the action of squeezing past passengers still seated who weren't in so much of a hurry was slower than the egress from slidng doors. I used to travel on GE compartment trains as well as class 306s, and the difference in egress speed between the two types at a major station in reality was negligible, - apart from the risks associated with manual doors not existing with the 306s. At Liverpool St, the egress rate limitation was the platform widths and especially the gateline.

 

[Matey]

November 1944 bitterly cold. House move from Datchet to Salisbury. Waterloo a sea of khaki, clacking of arrivals and departures board and non-stop pronouncements. Mug of tea from a trolley shared amongst us and a minute warm meat pie each - made of concrete. Told off for putting my pie in my gas mask case!

 

[NoMorePacers]

I think the first time I used Kings Cross was before I turned 3 years old - we were going to see my mum's cousin who was landing at Stansted thus we'd have gone to Liverpool Street shortly afterwards. I don't remember much from that though (I have a vague memory of going on a Central Trains service between Stansted and Peterborough but that's about it).

The first "proper" memory I have was from 3 years later, where we were trying to get back to Hull from Kings Cross - only in traditional railway fashion the weather caused our train to be cancelled meaning we had a rather long wait before we could get an alternative arrangement home.