What train encapulates your childhood?

[RPI]

I am now 70! I have several happy childhood memories; but if one train has to "encapsulate" my childhood it would be a 14xx plus auto trailer working between Monmouth and Ross on Wye.

We lived in Monmouth from 1957-1959. Both our home in Dixton Close, and our primary school on the way to Dixton, enjoyed intermittent views of the Ross line, among the trees (not too many of them then) on the other side of the River Wye. Our primary school had a most enlightened head teacher, Miss Evelyn Bowers. During November - December 1958, after the closure from early January 1959 had been announced, she stopped the lesson when a train was due to leave Monmouth May Hill, invited us all to watch it from a large bay window overlooking the valley, explained that this was a joy about to be taken away from us, and gently expressed some righteous anger that we were growing up in a world where such barmy things as closing a railway could happen.

In the week of the closure, she had the following poem published in the Monmouthshire Beacon:

A Small Train Thinks
(in a Very Small Way)

I'm out of date, and out of place,
I've wasted public money,
They'll need it all for Outer Space -
So that's not really funny...

They're shooting rockets at the Moon
Like coconuts at Sally,
Day-trips may run to Mars quite soon -
But no more to my Valley.

To see me puffing down the line
Caused Them a deal of worry.
Yet in that one-track world of mine
What need had I to hurry?

Past hoary rocks and ancient chase,
By heron-haunted streams,
I chugged along my antique pace
And stopped for timeless dreams.

I whistled long around each bend,
My smoke stretched in a cloud;
But now I've reached my journey's end
No longer I'm allowed.

To spend my days in sweet content
In puffing down the line,
My way of travel was not meant
For nineteen fifty-nine.

But when They've scaled the lunar heights
And circled every planet,
And broken all their days and nights
in record speed to span it;

And when their greater roads They've planned
For lesser men to travel by,
Will any find a fairer land
Than I found down the Wye?

E.M. BOWERS

I think my mother took me and my brother for two return trips to Ross, and one to Chepstow with pannier tank haulage. At Ross we saw "big trains on the main line" and never imagined that it too would close within seven years. The trip to Chepstow was just for the ride before closure, and I think the turnround time there must have been very short, as I do not recall watching any other trains on the main line there.

I think one of the return trips to Ross was in a streamlined diesel railcar, at a time when I think half the journeys were diesel and half steam. I can't remember much about the railcar but I know I didn't enjoy it so much - it seemed to be full of fumes.

My first ever cab ride (I have made very few in my life) was on a pannier tank at Troy station, into the tunnel and back again, I think just for my entertainment! I thought (and still do) that the pannier tanks looked more beautiful than the 14xx 0-4-2Ts, but the latter were the usual steam power for the Ross line.

A very enjoyable read (read whilst travelling to work on a line that BR did their best to run into the ground but now happily has a well used frequency, the West of England line)

 

[nw1]

While well before my time, and as someone who would generally consider the late-50s to mid-70s period (the period immediately before my earliest memories) as more 'good' than 'bad', that poem is very evocative of regret about changing times and leaving behind the security and comfort of your younger years. I suspect many can relate to this feeling duing the time we are living through now and the forecasts of what life may be like in the near future.

 

[WesternLancer]

I am now 70! I have several happy childhood memories; but if one train has to "encapsulate" my childhood it would be a 14xx plus auto trailer working between Monmouth and Ross on Wye.

We lived in Monmouth from 1957-1959. Both our home in Dixton Close, and our primary school on the way to Dixton, enjoyed intermittent views of the Ross line, among the trees (not too many of them then) on the other side of the River Wye. Our primary school had a most enlightened head teacher, Miss Evelyn Bowers. During November - December 1958, after the closure from early January 1959 had been announced, she stopped the lesson when a train was due to leave Monmouth May Hill, invited us all to watch it from a large bay window overlooking the valley, explained that this was a joy about to be taken away from us, and gently expressed some righteous anger that we were growing up in a world where such barmy things as closing a railway could happen.

In the week of the closure, she had the following poem published in the Monmouthshire Beacon:

A Small Train Thinks
(in a Very Small Way)

I'm out of date, and out of place,
I've wasted public money,
They'll need it all for Outer Space -
So that's not really funny...

They're shooting rockets at the Moon
Like coconuts at Sally,
Day-trips may run to Mars quite soon -
But no more to my Valley.

To see me puffing down the line
Caused Them a deal of worry.
Yet in that one-track world of mine
What need had I to hurry?

Past hoary rocks and ancient chase,
By heron-haunted streams,
I chugged along my antique pace
And stopped for timeless dreams.

I whistled long around each bend,
My smoke stretched in a cloud;
But now I've reached my journey's end
No longer I'm allowed.

To spend my days in sweet content
In puffing down the line,
My way of travel was not meant
For nineteen fifty-nine.

But when They've scaled the lunar heights
And circled every planet,
And broken all their days and nights
in record speed to span it;

And when their greater roads They've planned
For lesser men to travel by,
Will any find a fairer land
Than I found down the Wye?

E.M. BOWERS

I think my mother took me and my brother for two return trips to Ross, and one to Chepstow with pannier tank haulage. At Ross we saw "big trains on the main line" and never imagined that it too would close within seven years. The trip to Chepstow was just for the ride before closure, and I think the turnround time there must have been very short, as I do not recall watching any other trains on the main line there.

I think one of the return trips to Ross was in a streamlined diesel railcar, at a time when I think half the journeys were diesel and half steam. I can't remember much about the railcar but I know I didn't enjoy it so much - it seemed to be full of fumes.

My first ever cab ride (I have made very few in my life) was on a pannier tank at Troy station, into the tunnel and back again, I think just for my entertainment! I thought (and still do) that the pannier tanks looked more beautiful than the 14xx 0-4-2Ts, but the latter were the usual steam power for the Ross line.

Excellent post - thanks for putting it together.

Perhaps your teacher was inspired by / enjoyed The Titfield Thunderbolt - but could also see very clearly some of the key issues behind the film. Sounds like a teacher in every sense of the word.

 

[S&CLER]

Class 502/503 LMS emus, but definitely not the few surviving detestable slam-door "Lindberghs" from the 1920s , which still appeared on the Ormskirk line in the 1950s, mainly at peak times. When I moved from Merseyside to SE London in 1976, I felt as if I was going back in time, as SR slam-door emus seemed archaic compared with the Southport and Ormskirk stock.
One thing that struck me as a child in the 1950s was the difference in smell between the Mersey Railway and the open-air lines from Southport and Ormskirk to Exchange. At Central Low Level or James Street there was a distinct acrid smell. My mum told me it was ozone caused by the electric motors. Was she bluffing or could she have been right? (Liverpool Central High Level, on the other hand, smelt strongly of fish.)

 

[AM9]

Class 502/503 LMS emus, but definitely not the few surviving detestable slam-door "Lindberghs" from the 1920s , which still appeared on the Ormskirk line in the 1950s, mainly at peak times. When I moved from Merseyside to SE London in 1976, I felt as if I was going back in time, as SR slam-door emus seemed archaic compared with the Southport and Ormskirk stock.
One thing that struck me as a child in the 1950s was the difference in smell between the Mersey Railway and the open-air lines from Southport and Ormskirk to Exchange. At Central Low Level or James Street there was a distinct acrid smell. My mum told me it was ozone caused by the electric motors. Was she bluffing or could she have been right? (Liverpool Central High Level, on the other hand, smelt strongly of fish.)

It's true that arcing at brushes can create some ozone, so can the high-current splashes that regularly occur between the collector shous and the third rail.

 

[Bikeman78]

When I moved from Merseyside to SE London in 1976, I felt as if I was going back in time, as SR slam-door emus seemed archaic compared with the Southport and Ormskirk stock.

I felt the same when I travelled to the Netherlands in the 1980s. It seemed like a different planet. We had blue and grey slab front units with slam doors, they had the impressive all over yellow units with power doors and big noses on the ends (search NS mat 64 on Google). They weren't even new, the first one came out in 1964. The Belgian system was more similar to the UK with most trains in all over green although even they had power doors.

 

[yorkie]

For long distance journeys, the HST, as almost any long distance journey we took would involve an HST (mostly to Devon & Cornwall, not just to go on holiday there but also to visit family members).

For local journeys, the A Stock on the Metropolitan Line above all else, but I can still experience the classic stock on the Bakerloo & Piccadilly Lines which I also used to travel on.

By the time I got to Year 6 (age 11 for anyone unfamiliar with the English school system) I was able to travel without an adult present, just a friend or two of the same age. However a lot of parents don't give their children much (if any) independence at that age. I was lucky We were supposed to stay in the local area, and not go into central London, but there may have been the odd occasion when the boundaries were pushed a little

 

[Jozhua]

156/153's and 220 Voyagers unfortunately, they were both pretty ratty by the time I was old enough to remember lmao. The "good" trains were 158's. Of course only some of that has changed in the Midlands recently, with the slightly disasterous 170 rollout...

 

[Desiro360]

Class 321 units in First Great Eastern livery. Went on them many times with my Dad between Ipswich and London Liverpool St on days out in my childhood years.

 

[nw1]

I felt the same when I travelled to the Netherlands in the 1980s. It seemed like a different planet. We had blue and grey slab front units with slam doors, they had the impressive all over yellow units with power doors and big noses on the ends (search NS mat 64 on Google). They weren't even new, the first one came out in 1964. The Belgian system was more similar to the UK with most trains in all over green although even they had power doors.

Yes, those big nose units - they came up in a recent thread, they still seemed to be there in 2009. As recent as that, Belgium and the Netherlands seemed to be a treasure-trove of older and unusual design EMUs - in fact add in Germany with its extensive loco-hauled workings even on local services, and that part of the Continent in 2009 was rather reminiscent of 1980s or early 1990s BR in some ways.

By the time I got to Year 6 (age 11 for anyone unfamiliar with the English school system)

Or, indeed, anyone of a certain age who went to school in England when it was still called the first year of secondary school - or is it the last year of primary school? Still don't know ... I had left primary by 11, but did spend six years at primary school (5-10 inclusive) which might infer that Year 6 is the final year of primary school.

 

[Gloster]

Or, indeed, anyone of a certain age who went to school in England when it was still called the first year or secondary school - or is it the last year of primary school? Still don't know ... I had left primary by 11, but did spend six years at primary school (5-10 inclusive) which might infer that Year 6 is the final year of primary school.

For those of us who spent the years normally devoted to education at private schools, eleven was (for some) the life changing year of the Eleven-plus, which could get you into grammar school. For those not doing the Eleven-plus, it was the start of the run-up to Common Entrance, the exam that decided whether you got into a public school and which one, on which ‘your whole future depends, boy’.

 

[Mat17]

Anything with slam doors and blue/grey paint.

 

[Mikey C]

Or, indeed, anyone of a certain age who went to school in England when it was still called the first year of secondary school - or is it the last year of primary school? Still don't know ... I had left primary by 11, but did spend six years at primary school (5-10 inclusive) which might infer that Year 6 is the final year of primary school.

A bit off topic, but to me year 6 was the penultimate year of primary school, as I spent 7 years there! I then went to secondary school (grammar school) aged 11 for 7 years...

 

[Bikeman78]

Yes, those big nose units - they came up in a recent thread, they still seemed to be there in 2009. As recent as that, Belgium and the Netherlands seemed to be a treasure-trove of older and unusual design EMUs - in fact add in Germany with its extensive loco-hauled workings even on local services, and that part of the Continent in 2009 was rather reminiscent of 1980s or early 1990s BR in some ways.

Can you point me in the direction of that thread? They are one of my favourite trains. My first memory was in the early 1980s when I was four years old. My last runs were in March 2016 just three weeks before they finished. I had 10 different units from Roermond to Maastricht, Deurne to Nijmegen via Eindhoven and Nijmegen to Zutphen. I was extremely lucky. They were supposed to finish in December 2015 but they had a reprieve so I booked a trip and got there just before they finished.

Belgium had steam heat trains until December 2002. Despite many complaints about UK steam heat, I never had a problem in Belgium. They were always toasty warm even when it was -10 outside.

 

[nw1]

Can you point me in the direction of that thread? They are one of my favourite trains. My first memory was in the early 1980s when I was four years old. My last runs were in March 2016 just three weeks before they finished. I had 10 different units from Roermond to Maastricht, Deurne to Nijmegen via Eindhoven and Nijmegen to Zutphen. I was extremely lucky. They were supposed to finish in December 2015 but they had a reprieve so I booked a trip and got there just before they finished.

Belgium had steam heat trains until December 2002. Despite many complaints about UK steam heat, I never had a problem in Belgium. They were always toasty warm even when it was -10 outside.

I have to admit I can't remember where it was, sorry! Try the 'International Transport' forum or maybe 'Traction and Rolling Stock'. I know it came up about a month ago, but I don't think it was to do with Netherlands EMUs specifically. It may have been something to do with unusual design EMUs but the conversation may have drifted from the original subject of the thread.

A bit off topic, but to me year 6 was the penultimate year of primary school, as I spent 7 years there! I then went to secondary school (grammar school) aged 11 for 7 years...

It depended on the county if I remember right, some counties finishing primary at 10, and others at 11.

 

[pitdiver]

My twopennorth, I lived in what was Middlesex. I finished Junior school just after my eleventh birthday and went up to Grammar school the following September.

 

[WestRiding]

For me, dead 101s being dragged by Class 31s on the Leeds to Sheffield services. Yet people look back on BR as something brilliant. It was rubbish.

 

[yorksrob]

For me, dead 101s being dragged by Class 31s on the Leeds to Sheffield services. Yet people look back on BR as something brilliant. It was rubbish.

I think that maybe depends on where one lived !

 

[Mat17]

A dead 101 is still better than a living 153 imho.

 

[The exile]

Haymarket DMUs - and the "Sulzer splutter" - though lying in bed on a winter evening listening to Deltics open up about four miles away was quite fun!

Other than that it's "silly little things" like the "Empire timber" notices on some Mk Is, the "clunk" that the heating control knob made on Mk I compo stock or the smell that meant the steam heat was finally beginning to reach you (that's about two minutes before your calves started to cook!)

Even the noise made by a ticket clipper on an Edmonson ticket has nostalgia value!

 

[WestRiding]

A dead 101 is still better than a living 153 imho.

Good point.

 

[Hawkwood Junc]

Class 465s in toothpaste NSE livery. They seemed such a huge step change from the EPBs we used to have.

 

[trainmania100]

A 319 running Preston park to Burgess hill to visit the model shop that was but a 2 minute walk up the hill, it was either there or the model shop on Brighton Queens road (where the Chinese place is now) both. Gone now.

 

[MarkWi72]

I was always fascinated by frieght trains, and although there were not too many along the Storu Valley line, near to where I grew up (Dudley Port), we had an afternoon BOC bogie tanks from Wolves to Merseyside , via Grand Junction - there went south to Soho Triangle then across to Grand Junction line (6F57), , 4S50 Dudley-Glasgow freightliner of an evening which went through High and Low level Dudley Port; plus the oil tanks into Albion Oil Terminal from Stanlow. All now gone (I'm talking end 70s-mid 80s).

 

[Thewanderer]

Southern Region for me. Growing up in Twickenham so 455's were my staple. Always wanted to travel in the "yellow coach" on what I know now to be a 455/7 if one was in the formation, of course this being the ex 508 coach.

However if we were in London for the day, I would persuade my mother to take the Reading train home (VEP, sometimes a CIG) as far as Richmond and drop back onto the next service to serve Whitton (local station). In those days (1980's), headcode 38 didn't stop at Twickenham.

Moved to Ireland in 1989 when I was 8 so Irish railways after that and spent a childhood growing up around loco hauled trains of MK2's MK3's, Irish Rail Cravens with General Motors & Metropolitan Vickers locomotives. Very different from the Southern Region!

 

[davidknibb]

Bit of a whimsical thread, but do you have a train that takes you back to being 8 or 9 years old on the station platform again? For me, its an NSE livered class 455/1-ambling miserably through South London.

The 'ribby choo' ran from Chathill to Seahouses via North Sunderland. Mum and Dad took us on holiday to Seahouses when I was about 5 in 1950. That was a long time ago.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Not SUBs, but the thing that you don't hear so much these days away from the suburban area is that distinctive 'Duh-duh-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH ... duh... duh........ duh' of Southern units from EPBs right up to 442s and 456s. That's the same thing isn't it? I certainly understood it to be something to do with the brakes.

I remember hearing it sometimes when a train stopped at a station, and I particularly associate it with VEP/EPB combos on Platform 1 at Guildford a few minutes before they were due to pull out.

I last heard it on a 456 going from Wanborough to Guildford in 2014, so presumably you can still hear it if you use 455s or 456s regularly. Took me back to my younger days...

Ah, the sound of the compressors on a 400 series EMU. Literally the same unit used on the SUB/COR units as you would find on a 411/421/455 etc just as they all also pretty much use the same EE507 traction motor or a derivative of. The 442s use a different and distinctively sounding compressor

I grew up and woke up to the railway during NSE days. Most of my rail journeys back then were behind 50s on the mule, HSTs out of Cornwall and 1066 branded CEPs on the Hastings runs

 

[farleigh]

1066 branded 4CEPS seemed incredibly modern to me in 1986. Little did I know

 

[chorleyjeff]

Bit of a whimsical thread, but do you have a train that takes you back to being 8 or 9 years old on the station platform again? For me, its an NSE livered class 455/1-ambling miserably through South London.

ex LMS 2-6-4 tanks taking me to Southport, Manchester, Blackburn and Hellifield, and Blackpool .

 

[UrieS15]

The Devon Belle hurrying through Weybridge headed by an unrebuilt Bulleid pacific.