Weird train-related dreams

[Welly]

Had one recently, I dreamt that I went to a disused signalbox that was converted to a arcade game restoration workshop and I spent the time there leaning out of the window photographing passing trains but getting frustrated because my camera had the wrong lens on!

 

[Tracked]

I was walking a path on an old railway line, heading towards Sheffield, and it was dark and a cyclist came up from behind without any lights on. I got out of the way and continued up the old railway line and eventually came to the top of a hill. There was a big town to the bottom, and a main road snaking round it to the left (that's all I remember).

Incidentally, the old railway line isn't an old railway line in real life, I recognised it as a series of alleys at the other side of town I sometimes go down when out cycling.

 

[Envy123]

The Northern Line apparently went past Morden to the Sutton Loop, probably for easier interchange onto Thameslink. I wanted to go back to Huntingdon, so I took the tube from Morden to Sutton, intending to change there for a Thameslink train and then changing again at St Pancras.

The map in the carriage has shown the Sutton Loop in broken lines, implying it's some sort of limited service.

 

[SouthEastBuses]

I was enjoying the day in North Somerset. Decided to check out the West Somerset Railway, and so I decided to get the train from Watchet station. Was only planning to do a short hop to Bishops Lydeard. Then I noticed the tickets were normal National Rail style and I thought, when did regular services start running on the WSR? This must be an error!

Yet the WSR stations were completely unchanged, no GWR style signage or anything like that, not even any next train departure boards!

Then at somepoint, at Watchet, I heard an announcement with Rodger's voice announcing a GWR service to Exeter St Davids was approaching Watchet.

2 minutes later and a train appears. A 2 car GWR 165 Networker Turbo (165133) approaches Watchet. I got on the train, and was immediately greeted with your typical GWR Janine Cooper Marshall announcement saying "This is Watchet. Do not try to board or leave the train whilst the doors are closing. This is a Great Western Railway service to Exeter St Davids. We will be calling at: Williton, Stogumber, Crowcombe Heathfield, Bishops Lydeard, Norton Fitzwarren, Taunton, Tiverton Parkway and Exeter St Davids".

Doors closed, and when we depart Watchet, as soon as the Perkins diesel engines to start to rev in order to accelerate, another announcement then plays "The next station is Williton. This is a Great Western Railway service to Exeter St Davids."

I ended up staying as far as Taunton as a result, and ended up paying a £20 penalty fare when I tried to get through the barriers at Taunton station. I kindly asked the RPI explaining the situation if I could pay the ticket from Bishops Lydeard to Taunton claiming that the machine was faulty at Bishops Lydeard (my ticket was only valid from Watchet to Bishops Lydeard). They said I needed to buy a ticket before boarding, as Bishops Lydeard had available ticket machines, and as a result, I payed the £20 penalty fare. All moved on.

A nice story with a quite sad end...

 

[LUYMun]

Last night, apparently set in the present day, I dreamt that the London Underground kept an eight car A60/62 Stock unit as a spare train until an order of an additional S8 Stock unit was made to replace that line unit. As a result, there was a celebratory "last in day service" event, in which I had rode the A Stock unit up and down the Metropolitan line on its last day. Needless to say it was overcrowded as expected on a farewell service! I had also recorded part of the journey on my phone for memory's sake, but this is when train-related dream ended as my mind started to wonder elsewhere.

 

[185143]

I had a dream involving the Caledonian Sleeper a couple of weeks back which I definitely cannot share here.

Had one last night where I was on a 185 needing to use the facility and some kids kept pressing the door open button before I had chance to lock it. I ended up telling them off and threatening to pull the passcom and I'd blame them for it when the train stopped(!)

 

[miklcct]

Dreaming of travelling on the East Rail Line MLR trains through the New Territories suburbs despite they have all been retired in the real world and I moved to the UK for nearly a year. Maybe I have missed the city too much!

(I don't have the same feeling taking long distance trains here, but once I'm in on the electric suburban trains around London, especially in the 315/317/455/etc., or on the tube, my home feeling comes back immediately)

 

[nw1]

One recurring dream I have is the existence of a separate, semi-hidden, poorly-publicised rail network, with its own track and entirely unconnected to the ex-BR network. It uses classic continental-style rolling stock and colour schemes (e.g. no yellow ends).

I had a specific dream involving this about two nights ago. An independent rail company, called "Baker Rail", I think, was running a small network of trains using its own track. Specifically, it ran a branch line to Bishops Waltham, Hants, using DMUs which I could describe as "classic continental" in style, somewhat resembling trains I saw in France and Germany in the 80s and 90s. It also ran two or three other local routes and a few inter-city routes, one was oddly Orpington to Manchester. This called at its own, entirely separate, Clapham Junction station adjacent to the "BR" one.

I visited the Bishops Waltham station in the dream which resembled a classic French rural station with an on-site continental style cafe. It was a terminus. There was also, oddly, a freight train transporting, I think, pigs to market (I have passed a large pig farm not far from Bishops Waltham in real life, that might be the source of this). I do remember thinking in the dream that this was entirely separate to the old Southern station which closed years ago (and did in the dream, too), and was not well publicised so if you looked it up, it would appear that Bishops Waltham had no station.

A bit later in the dream, the "Baker Rail main line" passed Bishops Waltham and the town had a separate station, for occasional inter-city services, on the main line. Also the town itself in the dream was completely different to the real one, with lots of continental-style narrow streets, steep hills and considerably bigger.

 

[Calthrop]

One recurring dream I have is the existence of a separate, semi-hidden, poorly-publicised rail network, with its own track and entirely unconnected to the ex-BR network. It uses classic continental-style rolling stock and colour schemes (e.g. no yellow ends).

There might be possibilities here, for a work of fiction in the general fantasy / alternative-history sphere ...


A strange one of mine, the other night -- set, as my rail-centred dreams tend to be, at the immediate present day -- in which the Talyllyn Railway had very recently, viz. in the 2020's -- been converted to standard gauge, and otherwise exhaustively re-vamped in almost all conceivable ways. The reasons for this change did not become clear; but there was a sense that it had been with the consent / approval of more or less all concerned. Myself and a couple of enthusiast friends, were visiting this new Talyllyn: we'd travelled up from Tywyn, and were at Abergynolwyn awaiting departure back down the hill. (It was definitely Abergynolwyn, not Nant Gwernol.) Coaches were Mark 1, in old BR red-and-cream livery; loco was an Ivatt class 2 2-6-0, painted black; and chimney-first as we awaited for departure -- turntable installed at Abergynolwyn? or new standard practice for locos to face downhill chimney-first? -- who knows?

All platform surfaces at Abergynolwyn had been made-over with a dark-red kind-of tarmac surface. And from the line at some point: the Llanfyllin terminus of the ex-Cambrian branch to that town -- this line still in situ and seeing some kind of use as at 2022 -- was actually visible from the Talyllyn train. All rather odd ...

 

[Purple Train]

I was at Bat & Ball station in 1850. The stationmaster had gone to assist a goods train that had struck a small tree a little way down the line. The goods train was hauled by Thomas the Tank Engine. The tree was removed from the line, and the train continued into Bat & Ball, which had magically become Vicarstown station on the Isle of Sodor. However, when the stationmaster jumped from the footplate onto the platform, it magically became Bat & Ball again, only the year was somehow 1921...
What makes this even stranger is that Bat & Ball was opened in 1862 and only named Bat & Ball in 1950! Why it was historical I have no idea... I by no means remember the period of early privatisation, let alone pre-grouping, and much of my interest is in the railways of the modern day - the only section of particular interest to me where older railways come to the fore is railway architecture, and that played no part in the dream...

 

[Calthrop]

That's the Dream Master for you ...

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

I was at Bat & Ball station in 1850. The stationmaster had gone to assist a goods train that had struck a small tree a little way down the line. The goods train was hauled by Thomas the Tank Engine. The tree was removed from the line, and the train continued into Bat & Ball, which had magically become Vicarstown station on the Isle of Sodor. However, when the stationmaster jumped from the footplate onto the platform, it magically became Bat & Ball again, only the year was somehow 1921...
What makes this even stranger is that Bat & Ball was opened in 1862 and only named Bat & Ball in 1950! Why it was historical I have no idea... I by no means remember the period of early privatisation, let alone pre-grouping, and much of my interest is in the railways of the modern day - the only section of particular interest to me where older railways come to the fore is railway architecture, and that played no part in the dream...

I think the was a pub nearby called Bat and Ball.

What was the station called from 1862 until 1950?

 

[Purple Train]

I think the was a pub nearby called Bat and Ball.

What was the station called from 1862 until 1950?

I believe it opened as Sevenoaks, and was renamed Sevenoaks Bat & Ball when the now Sevenoaks station opened.
EDIT: My memory fails me, it was renamed in 1869, just after Sevenoaks opened - although when it opened, Sevenoaks was called Tubs Hill...

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

I had an odd dream last night. I was on the Isle Of Sheppey, (I used to go there in my childhood as we had family there.) In my dream, they were rebuilding and reopening the Sheppey Light Railway from Queenborough and Sheerness on Sea back to Leysdown and were restoring a magnificent Victoria Gothic Station at Leysdown!! A bit strange as the railway was only there from 1900 - 1950 and I think the stations were quite basic??

 

[Giugiaro]

I dreamt about being in a modernized NYC 181 Street Station a year ago.

I did not know about the station at the time, the area, or anything else!

The interior looked more like London Underground's Farringdon Station, where I've been already!

I quickly drew what I saw in the dream because this was weird!

The station hall from the platforms, looking West.

The station platforms, looking North. The middle platform sits on an old disused track.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

I had another couple of odd dreams the other night. Firstly, I was at my local Railway Station, Shepperton, which has one platform (although there is talk of another one being opened?) In my dream the station had been rebuilt in quite a modern style, two platforms on a North/South alignment for the regular services from Waterloo to Shepperton via Wimbledon and Kingston, the other two platforms on an East/West alignment for the peak hours services that operate via Richmond. The 2 sets platforms were at right angles to each other, (a bit like Shipley.) The large area between these sets of platforms was available for seating and circulation. I think the whole station was under cover too.

The other part of the dream, was that I was at London Victoria, travelling via Clapham Junction to Shepperton. The train left Victoria to C.Jct from Platform 26, which was in a set of extra platforms, but on the Kent Side of the station. Then at Clapham Junction the layout of that station was quite different, with passenger footbridges and subways that did not lead up to the correct platforms. All very odd.

 

[150249]

Not quite train-related but last night I had a weird bus-related dream. In the dream, I was walking around Exeter and Torquay where all the buses constantly changed livery and fleet number. The first bus I saw was the long gone 48019 (withdrawn due to fire damage) with the registration plate of 48020.

 

[nw1]

Weird dream the other night involving a train, and set in Australia (which I have never visited, but frequently dream about for some reason).

I was in what purported to be the Gold Coast, but it was immediately east of Sydney, which oddly was on the south coast about where Melbourne should be. I remember it consisting of a skyline of large hotels stretching for miles ahead. At some point the hotels seemed to become blocks of flats and I remember thinking they looked quite ugly.

I recall there was some sort of metro system along this line of flats, and the flats seemed to be in two rows with a gap in the middle. I remember taking the metro to some stop a few miles along, and then getting off for some reason. By that stage the flats had become quite run-down and some rather aggressive people lived in them, I had the feeling the area wasn't totally "safe" but a member of train staff said something like "that's the Gold Coast way", or something.

From this station I headed northeast along some road (inland) surrounded by white sand which I took to be a desert, before returning to the metro station ostensibly to take a westbound train back. But for some reason I got on another eastbound, which headed along the coast with the sea visible to the south. I recall seeing an airport (Sydney?) almost half-floating on the sea and a 747 taking off from the water.

The train continued east and the surroundings became more and more sinister, no longer flats but rather abandoned industrial buildings, one being scorched black from some kind of accident, there seemed to be some implication it was a former nuclear power station. The whole thing seemed completely unnerving.

At that point the metro seemed to change into a bus and head into a small town. Further sinister ex-industrial buildings were visible to the east, one of which had my name painted on it for some reason.

Strange, and interesting how the whole thing seemed to take a darker and darker tone as I headed along the coast in the dream.

 

[Envy123]

Tupac had his own station north of Peterborough. LNER stopped there on the Leeds services. There was also a shuttle service between Peterborough and Tupac, with a class 365 unit.

I remember seeing a map and it was probably a mansion or something.

 

[nw1]

Another one last night. Set in the modern day, I wanted to spend some time on East Croydon station observing train workings.

This is something I actually did on several occasions between 1986 and 1988, but with these cut-down post-Covid timetables and the predictability of the workings since the Thameslink extension, it's something I would be extremely unlikely to do right now.

However in the dream, a different timetable was running to real-life 2022, perhaps more like the Southern timetables of the 2013/4 era, which to me were considerably more interesting than the current ones.

I was on a 455 which had come in from Redhill or Reigate stopping at all stations, and it drew into Purley Oaks. For some reason the rail line was in middle of a dead-straight, US-style urban street, rather like a light-rail system, and ahead Croydon loomed, with huge Manhattan-style skyscrapers and some kind of monument straight ahead.

I had to get off at Purley Oaks for a while and buy clothes from a shop, helped by an assistant who looked like a less attractive version of Hugh Grant.

No idea what that was all about!

 

[Calthrop]

Tupac had his own station north of Peterborough. LNER stopped there on the Leeds services. There was also a shuttle service between Peterborough and Tupac, with a class 365 unit.

I remember seeing a map and it was probably a mansion or something.

I'm so clueless about the modern music and generally "hip" scene; that your mention of someone called Tupac had me initially bemused -- could only think of Peruvians getting the dirty end of the stick in dealings with the Spaniards, long ago. Had an inkling that this Tupac might be to do with "switched-on" music; and Googled -- I take it that the guy referred to, is the American rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur (1971 -- 96). One would feel -- going by the article about him -- that he would likely have found Peterborough highly un-exciting !

 

[adc82140]

Odd one a few nights ago. I was on a GWR 769 heading in to Waterloo (they say dreams don't make much sense) and I was arguing with the driver about why it was on diesel power. He said that there were no overheads, and he wouldn't have it that there was 3rd rail.

 

[Envy123]

that he would likely have found Peterborough highly un-exciting !

Yeah, that's why it was so weird. Why he wanted his own station to a private mansion very close to Peterborough, was something I wondered myself. I'd have sooner reopened Scrooby with a fast intercity service to London.

 

[Tangent]

I suddenly realised, a couple of mornings ago, that I keep dreaming of a Charing Cross Low Level station (in London, rather than Glasgow, where this wouldn't be odd at all). I have never actually been there in a dream I remember, but my dream-self can conjure up a mental picture of it when I am thinking about it.

The tunnel portal shifts: in one dream, it was to the north of Waterloo East; in another, it was on the eastern side of the actual Charing Cross. In another, it also had an overrun tunnel that connects to Thameslink somewhere north of Blackfriars, but is only used by empty stock. The portal and station look as if they were constructed at some time in the late 80s or early 90s.

In the latest dream where it featured, I was waiting for a train at the 'High Level'. There had been two unrelated rail crashes on the network in the same day (one somewhere on the GWML), and, for some reason, this had led to total network chaos. Most trains were delayed or cancelled by half an hour. Some late trains arriving displayed "Two Crashes' on their destination boards, and were being driven without breaking right into the buffers, presumably on the theory that 'another one won't hurt'. As there was no chance of a High Level train, my dream self thought I would see what was happening on the Low Level, but the dream ended before I got there.

 

[Purple Train]

I had a rather strange nightmare. I dreamt that I was on a Class 321 (singular) that was arriving at a large terminus station that had both overheads and third rail. As I got off, I was greeted by a crowd of strangers waving top hats, who rushed towards me. Running backwards away from them, I stumbled, fell underneath the train and was promptly electrocuted on the third rail.

I know about the top hats bit - on a recent trip to see friends, I got off the train (formed of a single 321) to be confronted by them standing on the platform to meet me, trying to cram a top hat onto me (why I don't know). Fortunately, I didn't fall under the train and there was no third rail to be electrocuted on, but it was still slightly frightening, especially given they're all taller and bigger than I am...

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

I had one last night. I was at my local Station, Shepperton, instead of the usual SWR Red commuter electric unit turning up, a large diesel locomotive hauled in three Maroon MK1 or MK2 carriages. As well as the usual open saloon or side corridor compartments that those coaches have, they also had some odd configurations, for example a compartment with an unmade double bed, compartments with no seat coverings and a compartment rather like those of the directors saloons you sometime see on some of the preserved lines. In the dream, I took so long deciding which part of the train to sit in and it departed without me. That resulted in me getting severely told off by a guard!! I did notice though that it was not diesel hauled back out of the station, the carriages were either moving by themselves or perhaps propelled by the loco. As soon as that train had departed however, the next train came in and was again a 3 coach maroon diesel hauled train.

 

[GS250]

Have loads of dreams about BR Blue intercity stock passing through Harrow and Wealdstone. The odd thing is is that it's in the present day on service trains and then I'm rushing to the phone to find out what is going on!

 

[Tracked]

I was on some orient-express style really posh train, there was someone on board who'd disappeared for some time and returned, and we were now travelling back to the area he'd disappeared in. There also was some sort of video game/TV show thing going on where he'd be dropping things - say, bits of paper - and they'd highlight themselves as valuable clues being lost.

We got off the train and walked through a gap in some rocks, there was a note saying something like "I've been past here, do not go past here".

Cut to an overhead shot of people getting off an old steam train, and old-style carriages, on a line that appeared to be fairly high up in a mountain range.

 

[Calthrop]

Unusual one last night -- clearly influenced by my having quite recently acquired the late J.I.C. Boyd's book Saga by Rail -- Great Britain and the Isle of Man: with a highly-varied assortment of chapters about railway experiences of his in those areas, in the earlier parts of his long life. One such, tells of a couple of days' intensive "railwaying" in Scotland, with a fellow-enthusiast, on leave from the Army at the time of V.E. Day -- including a ride from Aviemore to Forres on the footplate of a much-the-worse-for-wear Black Five. In my dream, I was either actually on that same expedition with Boyd and his chum; or (all this unclear when I woke) I was a contemporary of theirs, making a similar trip around that date -- whether solo, or with friends of own, also unknown. No directly-railway material from the dream, survived my waking -- except that all was, as would have been then for such as us -- "cloud nine"; what I recall, is an exasperating situation involving staying overnight at some small town between Inverness and Aberdeen. The logistics of this, resulted in ?my ?our luggage being in the rail station's left-luggage facility, after said facility's closing time. The "left-luggage" was in the charge of an unpleasant, unhelpful and totally unyielding, rules-bound young woman: who before my / our eyes, closed up until the morning (with my / our gear visibly in it) the facility's "luggage-confining" device: a kind of mechanism with a, for 1945, highly plastic-and-automated-looking appearance. This left me / us in a worrying predicament; then I woke up, so "outcome unknown".

 

[lxfe_mxtterz]

Had an incredibly odd one last night...

I was stuck somewhere in South Africa wanting to return to London but, at the very last minute, my flight had been cancelled. So, in this mysterious dream-based reality, the most logical option was for there to be a "plane replacement train".

Alas, I boarded the train - which externally was grey and battered, but internally similar to the old Class 423 - and off we departed towards London.

As we left this unknown city, we climbed an impossibly steep gradient (which forced the train almost vertically) to the top of the plains, and a whole abundance of wildlife made itself known. There were zebras, giraffes, all just meters from the open, yet caged up, train windows.

After around an hour of this unexpected safari, we descended back down into this tiny, remote - almost unreachable - and very run-down town. The passenger opposite me exclaimed how she needed to use the toilet, so darted off to use the facilities at the station.

Five minutes later, she returns and looks me dead in the eye, and mutters something I assumed was descriptive of the residents of this town, "Biggest. Regret. Of. My. Life. They all look normal, just like tiny sleeping men, but if you dare interact with them, if you dare even do so much as look at them..."

Very shortly after leaving this town, and climbing back up onto the plains, the guard made an announcement saying that any passengers travelling in a compartment were to close their curtains and do not attempt to look outside, and that those who were seated in the standard seats were... doomed(?!)

He claimed that at all of our stops in rural Africa, we would encounter more and more of these "tribal types" who weren't too fond of outsiders, and that the best option was to pretend to be asleep until we reached Frankfurt, Germany.

At this point, I remember becoming very interested in a news article on my phone about "plane replacement buses" this week between Manhattan and London using the "brand new undersea road tunnels", operated with typical New York City buses, and how that would've been their first time appearing in London.

Needless to say, I didn't make it to Frankfurt. Not because I wasn't pretending to be asleep... but because the train broke down. By this point, we had reached another sizable South African city, and we were all mercilessly chucked off and told to wait six hours in the dark for the next one.

Upon exiting the station, the whole place was carnage, masses of people rioting and attacking each other, helpless police being outnumbered and thus rendered useless. It was like something out of The Purge.

Not knowing where else to go, I hesitantly returned to the station, but by some wild miracle, there was a Southern Class 455 standing at one of the platforms, the screen at the front saying "Kensal Rise". I boarded, and pretended I was asleep all the way back.