What a cracking thread..................
i remember the first time i went lineside to watch trains, i was 6yr old on the newcastle-sunderland line, with 2 of my cousins, armed with pen and paper, writing down the old class 101 DMU's and being totally confused why they had an E before the number, yet when the odd freight trains went by (usually 37's to Sunderland South Dock and Wearside Colliery) they didn't, pretty much where the Stadium of Light Metro Station is now, was a signal box and some sidings where there'd be a couple of shunters, i was transfixed after saving my pocket money up, i asked my cousins which book to get, they said Locoshed, so i duly handed over my pocket money to me mam and after work she had to hunt it down. My dad was handed the job of taking me and my cousins from Seaburn to Newcastle. We got on the 101 or the multi as i been told they were to be called now and all i remember about that journey to Newcastle was how bouncey the seats were
. Now Newcastle Central Station isnt what I'd call a huge station, but to a nigh on 7yr old by then and my 2 older cousins, it was a railway mecca, my cousins and i come home with badges off the drivers, window stickers, drivers old timetables you name it, i thought i saw my first steam engine, which turned out to be an 03, a Deltic, which we cabbed and as i told me mam that night, i even got to sit in the seat where the driver sits. When me Mam and Dad split, I used to visit dad on school holidays, he moved to Gateshead and a family friend of his said, i'm taking the bairn down the lines, you think yours will want to come with us, me dad said, go, show him the way and he'll beat you there, me dad gave me a pencil, notepad and some money for sweets and pop and along i tagged, happy as a pig in ****. If i thought newcastle was my railway mecca, imagine the sheer delight, when not only did i get to see passenger trains roaring by but loads of freight trains too, Tyne Yard to me was heaven, then the next day i went with my new best friend and his dad to Gaateshead shed and back to Central Station, when i got home i showed my cousins my notebook, they were a bit jealous but not as much as i was, when i heard my uncle had taken them to York for the day.
That sounds not at all dissimilar to my own childhood railway experiences, although by the time I came into this world, Pacers had taken over the local services on the Sunderland to Newcastle route, and coal trains to and from Wearmouth Colliery were in the hands of class 56s. I lived throughout my childhood and well into my teens into a house overlooking the Sunderland to Newcastle line, not fifty yards from the signalbox near the present Stadium of Light station that you mention, and adjacent to the site of those self same sidings that you used to watch the trains at, although by the time I was growing up they had all gone and were no more than a stretch of ballast overgrown with shrubland.
Living next to the line as I did, I got to see and became familiar with everything that passed by on the Sunderland to Newcastle route: I poignantly remember the MGR coal trains, which were hauled by scruffy, noisy class 56 locos and seemed absolutely monstrous to me as a young boy, and they used to shake the ground as they passed!
Newcastle station was also my favourite haunt, and was indeed an absolute railway mecca for me between the ages of about six to twelve: Sometimes my parents, but more often my Gran would be saddled with taking me through to Newcastle for the day on the train from Seaburn, where I can remember Provincial liveried 143s and Cornish "Skipper" liveried 142s on the local services, and at Newcastle I would be mesmerised by the sight of relatively new Intercity 225s and the myriad of freight activity, particularly the postal trains that passed through. The class 03s were gone by this point though, and Gateshead shed was home to no more than a couple of manky blue 08s: Apparently when I was very young it had quite a sizeable allocation of 08s, but by the time I can remember the place it had been wound down to such an extent that a couple of 08s was all their was, and the final two lingered on, in store, there for several years.
I remember when the last 08 (until recently, when 08502 has again been stationed there) was relocated away from Heaton in 2000, not least because it made the entire trip from Heaton to Thornaby under it's own power, down the Durham Coast line!
I recall that I was sitting eating my lunch, when 08633 just trundled genteely past in the direction of Tees-side: Even if it didn't get looped, which it undoubtedly would have been at various points throughout its' journey, at a maximum of 15mph that would have been a massively tedious journey!
I also discovered Tyne Yard a little later, which still held a decent amount of freight interest in the late 90s/early 2000s, although sadly this was greatly lessened following the loss of the Royal Mail traffic, and the yard is now barely a shadow of its' former self. Trips to York were a particular special treat for me, usually arranged in conjunction with my birthdays.
Whilst I am too young to remember the Sunderland to Newcastle line as you saw it, my mother remembers the old signalbox and the sidings near what is now Stadium of Light, the class 101s ("proper trains" as she calls them), and the class 37 hauled coal trains: You probably know that there used to be a mesh-sided green footbridge further south down the line from Seaburn station, and not far beyond the junction for the former North Dock line (The foot crossing is still in place, but the previous footbridge has been replaced by a high-sided, opaque affair, spoiling the fun): My mother and her friends used to watch the trains passing underneath from there from time to time and wave to the drivers: Apparently a large number of the drivers of the 37s on the coal duties used to let the locos idle on the way towards the bridge, and then when they were directly underneath, they would open the throttle right up and the whole thing would go mental with clag, engulfing everyone standing on the bridge: My Mam and her friends used to think this was great fun, although that sort of thing would be banned on health and safety grounds now!
Later in her life, when working in Gateshead, she remembers that some of the guards on the 101s on the Sunderland to Newcastle line were really good humoured, and on the way back from work (They used to go to The Cooperage for a few pints of Westons on a Friday lunchtime, and then again after work) they would sometimes get up to a bit of hi-jinx, where the guard if asked would lock someone away in a cupboard in the brake van and threaten to not let them out again until the train finished its' run in Middlesborough, although he would always open it up again in time for their stop at Sunderland