Earliest Train journeys

My first memories of travelling by train were taking the Central Line from Hainault to Newbury Park, and back, on a Sunday, with my mum and sisters to visit my grandfather in hospital. I guess this was in the late 60's to early 70's, and I still remember that the trains had a distinct smell about them. Whether this was because they were still comparatively new at the time, or it was just the smell of the tunnels, I couldn't say, but it was something that stuck in my mind for a long time!

If we're talking LU first journeys, being a Geordie obviously I didn't use the system very often! I can always remember getting very excited about visiting London with my parents though. My mam and dad wanted to use it as little as possible, wanting to visit museums etc, but I would have bee quite happy just riding around the system all day!

My earliest mainline (as it was then) train journeys I remember were from Newcastle to Tynemouth or Whitley Bay (Now obviously operated by the Tyne & Wear Metro). These were the old heritage DMUs with manual gear changes and the ability to sit behind the driver seeing what he was doing etc. Good old days!

In fact I always remember at Tynemouth (I think) station, having to queue to board the train... In those days the station master kept the large gates pulled accross so you couldn't access the platform until the train had arrived! A sort of early version of Platform Edge Doors! ;D

Incidentally, I'm very happy to say I cannot remember steam trains running when I was a lad... The East Coast Main Line was strictly Deltic-hauled trains back then!

My earliest railway memory (rather than journey) dates from before I started or was at primary school.

At that time we lived in a block of flats on the corner of Cumberland Market, not far from Euston. My father travelled out to Willesden Jnc to work. One afternoon we went to Euston to meet him (this is when it was still a real station). My mother and I were stood by the barrier waiting for his train to arrive adjacent to a large black steam loco.

"Pop" safety valves never give any warning that they are about to open they simply do, with a bang, as they did on this particular loco at that particular moment.

The escaping steam went up and hit the roof rapidly followed by a cetain small boy.

I've never liked LMS locos since.

My first journey on LU was sometime in the mid-eighties, on a school trip. I remember being distinctly worried that a teacher would discover our take-out stash that we had concealed in our bags. Oh, and the trains were small.

My first journeys on train here in Sweden were of course much earlier. I can't really place any single memory as my first distinct one, but I do have lots of memories of them, since we did travel a lot by train, both commuter and long distance. One thing I do remember from my earliest childhood was that sometimes the local commuter EMU:s were replaced by loco+coaches+loco, top and tailed. These trains were always interesting, since they always had some very strange coaches and locos that you never saw anytime else.

Today, I know that it was partly due to an extreme shortage of rolling stock,and partly due to the periodic testing of an emergency timetable and stock diagrams. These trains were infamous for being composed of just about anything that could get out of Hagalund coaching depot with only a moderate amount of violence. Hg-class heavy shunters coupled to coaches built for private railways in the twenties, for example. And of course, they never kept to anythig resembling a timetable, but that seemde to bother my parents much more than it bothered me.

My earliest journey was on a 4sub from Selhurst to Victoria.I must have been about 4 or 5. I remember being taken up front to ride with the driver (my dad worked at Clapham Jct) and was asked by the driver to turn the handbrake whilst we were moving. I didn't want to incase the train fell off (yes, I know now!! ;D) I was fascinated and I think this was where my interest in railways started.
Then once there I remember having to then queue to buy a ticket at Victoria LT station as we couldn't use the machines (priv rate ). I always remember the smell, a sort of mechanical smell which seemed to dissapear after the Kings Cross disaster. Where did that smell go?I was always scared of the underground as a child and was petrified when the vic line stopped between stations. I always thought another train would catch up and run into the back of us. Of course in later years i found a really good book in the library at junior school which detailed the underground and its workings with diagrams and of course this understanding then allayed my fears.



I was at the U of G from 1994 for 3 years. What campus was you at. I was at the now erstwhile Dartford campus studying building surveying.

Ok... "trainopd78" you have now freaked me out...... SNAP

I was doing Building Surveying at Dartford too....... under the watchful eye of Peter Dalton..... bloody hell! I started in 1992 as a QS and transferred to qualify as a BS in 1995

I APOLOGISE FOR BORING EVERYONE ELSE HERE!

Did't realise they let two railway nuts into the U of G at the same time, net alone the same campus...!

Just old enough to remember the old handworked door stock on the DR and the London TRAMS!!

WHO SAID "Geriatric old ba****d

Nice one Q8!!
I can remember Trolleybuses and Q-stock on the District (with air-worked doors), but you've got me beat with both handworked doors and London Trams!

Ooooo.... trolleybuses!!!

Have any of you guys been to the East Anglia Transport Museum in Carlton Colville near Lowestoft??
They do special 'trolleybus weekends' when you get to ride on those lovely vehicles that Q8, Dave, and I, remember from our younger days. OK, only around a shortish loop but it brings back those memories for us old gits!

Not only that, but RTs and Bristol Lowdekkas for a long ride out of the museum.... Heaven!!

Q8 - They have trams as well!

...and then if you're into trams, there is the National tramway museum at Crich, which has a run of aroud a mile and a nice collection of trams.

Me again!

Are there any old LU stock in the NRM in York?

The NRM is devoted to the main line companies.

There used to be a Standard Stock DM in the South Ken Science Museum but it was removed several years ago.

When the Museum of British Transport (as I think it was) was at Clapham it covered both railways (both flavours) and buses. Both the NRM (based on a pre-existing railways museum at York) and the LT Museum were set up when Clapham closed withe the LT collection moving to a large shed in Syon Park.

The Doncaster trolleybus museum is Sandtoft, haven't been there though. Have ridden the Q1 at Carlton Colville.

Can just recall the trams, especially the Kingsway subway, used by the 35 from Archway through Highbury. Very exciting to sit upstairs at the front as it dived down the ramp from Holborn!

Can't sleep so a quick post to Pete UXB. ( By the way I suppose the UXB stands for Uxbridge but during the war it stood for unexploded bomb)

Yes you would have loved the old Kingsway subway. Every sunday afternoon Mum and Dad used to take me on the 35 from Walworth to Nags Head Holloway for tea at my Nan's. It was usually a bit salad in the summer and either winkles/shrimps in the winter or toast done on a toasting fork in front of a blazing coal fire. You never tasted better toast in your life and none of your pre-sliced bread either.

Now as you went down the ramp at the Bloomsbury end of the subway you got a lovely whining noise from the car motors as the magnetic track brake operated to keep the car in control. This was accompanied by showers of sparks from the running rails as the magnets clamped down hard on them. This by the way was the normal service brake for the trams and was very fierce. It would slow the car to about 4 mph and the last knockings were done by the handbrake on the platform. This hand brake had a pawl at the bottom which sounded very like the turnstile at a football ground as it was wound on. When he got the bell the driver would grab the brake handle and wind it a bit tighter then give the pawl a kick and let the handle go and the noise it made as it released was lovely. "CLACKETTY CLACKETTY CLACK" would be the best description of the sound. There were signals on that ramp too at the top towards Aldwych and at the bottom going northwards. This was because two cars were not allowed on the ramp at the same time. The one going south would not clear until the preceding car had reached Holborn station and the one going north was situated at Holborn station and would not clear until the car in front had cleared the ramp and gone round the corner. Some times when going up the ramp the driver would notch up too quick and there would be a very loud "bang" as the circuit breakers opened. The brake was immediately applied and the car held still whilst the circuit breakers were re-set. Sometimes the breaker would bang several times so you would go up the ramp in a series of short hops accompaneid by a lot of effing and blinding from the driver. By the way you boarded and alighted from the tram at the front end in the subway stations as they were island platforms and there was only about 6 inches clearance between the car and the tunnel wall. Going through the subway itself was eerie. In the double track parts of the tunnel the gear noise from the car would bounce back from the wall in an almost organ like fashion and in the single tunnels at the south end the noise was incredible and made the head ring. Especially as that end of the tunnel was wet and had corrugated rails. The gears on a tram were extremely noisy to begin with so the combination of confined space, corrugated rails and gear noise can be well imagined. Despite all that this young lad adored the trams and wanted to be a tram driver when he grew up. When they were done away with he was inconsolable for weeks.