Wright writes.....

[richard i]

Perhaps trainspotting as a hobby was done due to post war austerity. Once incomes rose and availability of other avenues of play which cost money and resources replaced it. I do not wish to get political but it seems from a social historians view point to have really changed when the consumerism of the eighties kicked in. You could not walk down the street and show off a list of numbers anyone with time and patience could collect, but that new pair of trainers. Well they cost a lot and clearly marked you out as someone with cash. Personally I never caught that idea, which might explain my job and hobby.

Richard

[Clive Mortimore]

 

Tony Wright, on 20 Jan 2018 - 16:32, said:

 

 

 

 

For what it's worth I'm 63 and I clearly remember the day when Bulleid pacific 'Winston Churchill' ran into Southampton Central. I was about 7 or 8, I'd had the Tri-ang model for Christmas and I ached to see the real thing. We were on the opposite side of the station when I spotted it and I left my Dad standing as I tore across to the other side, scattering passengers, porters and GPO staff in my wake. I'd never had the nerve to speak to a driver before but by the time Dad arrived I was up in the cab, spellbound. The first time I'd ever been in the cab of a steam engine!

 

Hi Tevor

 

I am couple of years younger but Winston Churchill thundering through Farnborough station is the only steam namer I can recall trainspotting. There were other Bulleids but there names never stuck in my head and I will need to find (if I still have it) the ABC they were underlined in. But Winston Churchill sure sticks in my mind.

 

Richard makes a valid point about the age of consumerism has put a nail in many coffins of past hobbies. My mum and dad were never splashed with cash but I did get a bob for my pocket money, 1968-9ish. With my pocket money I had the bus fare to go to the station, a bar of chocolate (Nestle) from the machine on the platform. Sometimes change if the nice ticketman was on duty and I didn't need a platform ticket. Didn't the chocolate from the machine on a cold day taste wonderful? Doing things like going down the shops for my mum would boost my pocket money, sometimes enough to buy a ticket to Kettering or some other exotic location or the latest Railway World. The two kids who Richard taught, and I have been told I had some thing to do with their existence, never really had pocket money (mean father ..not) but would always seem to have the latest thing they NEEDED.  Different times, both as good as each other in their own way.

[Tony Wright]

 

Tony Wright, on 20 Jan 2018 - 16:32, said:

 

 

 

 

For what it's worth I'm 63 and I clearly remember the day when Bulleid pacific 'Winston Churchill' ran into Southampton Central. I was about 7 or 8, I'd had the Tri-ang model for Christmas and I ached to see the real thing. We were on the opposite side of the station when I spotted it and I left my Dad standing as I tore across to the other side, scattering passengers, porters and GPO staff in my wake. I'd never had the nerve to speak to a driver before but by the time Dad arrived I was up in the cab, spellbound. The first time I'd ever been in the cab of a steam engine!

 

Trevor,

 

I think what I was trying to point out was the fact that to have a less-than-earlier-childhood memory of BR steam, one has to be (or close to being) near 70 or over. 

 

I take it you were born in 1955 (if my maths is right)? The year of the BR Modernisation Plan and of DELTIC's introduction. Thus, by the time you were four, the W1 and the first Thompson Pacifics had been scrapped. By 1960, the first Patriots were disappearing, as were lots of older steam locos. By the time you were 13, steam had disappeared from BR's ownership. 

 

I think you were lucky (I'm assuming you lived in the South) in that you witnessed almost the last steam-hauled main line in the country (the last was between Liverpool and Preston, which I saw at teacher training college in Ormskirk from 1967). At the time you saw 34051 (a couple of years after I first saw it), my indigenous main lines had mainly diesel- or electrically-hauled principal trains. For instance, by 1962 all the Deltics were in service and the first A4s were withdrawn at the end of the year. By the end of 1963, the southern end of the GN main line was almost all diesel and the WCML electrification was forging towards Euston. Scotland, of course, saw the swan song of ex-LNER motive power, but the Duchesses had all gone by the time you were nine. 

 

I've no wish to be ageist about this. My first tangible memories of steam are of blue Semis at Chester and along the N. Wales Coast (when I was six or seven) and apple green B1s at Kiveton Park. However, those memories are fickle and fleeting, so I've chosen to pitch my modelling at the year when I was 12. I was certainly not mature, but old enough to have taken (poor) pictures and to have travelled to the likes of Crewe (from Chester) and Retford (from Kiveton Park) without my parents or older relatives. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony.  

Edited January 20, 2018 by Tony Wright

[petrovich]

Trevor,

 

I think what I was trying to point out was the fact that to have a less-than-earlier-childhood memory of BR steam, one has to be (or close to being) near 70 or over. 

 

I take it you were born in 1955 (if my maths is right)? The year of the BR Modernisation Plan and of DELTIC's introduction. Thus, by the time you were four, the W1 and the first Thompson Pacifics had been scrapped. By 1960, the first Patriots were disappearing, as were lots of older steam locos. By the time you were 13, steam had disappeared from BR's ownership. 

 

I think you were lucky (I'm assuming you lived in the South) in that you witnessed almost the last steam-hauled main line in the country (the last was between Liverpool and Preston, which I saw at teacher training college in Ormskirk from 1967). At the time you saw 34051 (a couple of years after I first saw it), my indigenous main lines had mainly diesel- or electrically-hauled principal trains. For instance, by 1962 all the Deltics were in service and the first A4s were withdrawn at the end of the year. By the end of 1963, the southern end of the GN main line was almost all diesel and the WCML electrification was forging towards Euston. Scotland, of course, saw the swan song of ex-LNER motive power, but the Duchesses had all gone by the time you were nine. 

 

I've no wish to be ageist about this. My first tangible memories of steam are of blue Semis at Chester and along the N. Wales Coast (when I was six or seven) and apple green B1s at Kiveton Park. However, those memories are fickle and fleeting, so I've chosen to pitch my modelling at the year when I was 12. I was certainly not mature, but old enough to have taken (poor) pictures and to have travelled to the likes of Crewe (from Chester) and Retford (from Kiveton Park) without my parents or older relatives. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony.  

Hi Tony 

You are spot on as i have Westerns and Warships in my Westbourne adventures and loads of tank engines used as carriage shunters although I can remember odd days of steam only. I am too young for steam only and I am in my sixties. 

 

Please keep this thread running as I find it fascinating even if this is not what the main course of it is meant to be.

 

 

Regards

 

Peter

[ecgtheow]

Trevor,

 

I think what I was trying to point out was the fact that to have a less-than-earlier-childhood memory of BR steam, one has to be (or close to being) near 70 or over. 

 

I take it you were born in 1955 (if my maths is right)? The year of the BR Modernisation Plan and of DELTIC's introduction. Thus, by the time you were four, the W1 and the first Thompson Pacifics had been scrapped. By 1960, the first Patriots were disappearing, as were lots of older steam locos. By the time you were 13, steam had disappeared from BR's ownership. 

 

I think you were lucky (I'm assuming you lived in the South) in that you witnessed almost the last steam-hauled main line in the country (the last was between Liverpool and Preston, which I saw at teacher training college in Ormskirk from 1967). At the time you saw 34051 (a couple of years after I first saw it), my indigenous main lines had mainly diesel- or electrically-hauled principal trains. For instance, by 1962 all the Deltics were in service and the first A4s were withdrawn at the end of the year. By the end of 1963, the southern end of the GN main line was almost all diesel and the WCML electrification was forging towards Euston. Scotland, of course, saw the swan song of ex-LNER motive power, but the Duchesses had all gone by the time you were nine. 

 

I've no wish to be ageist about this. My first tangible memories of steam are of blue Semis at Chester and along the N. Wales Coast (when I was six or seven) and apple green B1s at Kiveton Park. However, those memories are fickle and fleeting, so I've chosen to pitch my modelling at the year when I was 12. I was certainly not mature, but old enough to have taken (poor) pictures and to have travelled to the likes of Crewe (from Chester) and Retford (from Kiveton Park) without my parents or older relatives. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony.  

 

Tony,

 

As I may have told you on told you on the couple of occasions that we met at exhibitions I was probably train spotting on Chester General when you were, but my main places were opposite the Lever Bros sidings at Port Sunlight/Bebington & on the Bidston Dock to Connahs Quay line watching 9F's hauling John Summers iron ore trains up the back to Heswall. They are dramatic in the evening against a setting sun. I now have a model of just such a train. On the Birkenhead to Chester line there was quite a mixture of GW Halls, Granges, Counties & LMS Jubilees, Patriots as well as 8F's, ex-LNWR 0-8-0's & more lowly tanks etc. I never saw a blue Semi but saw lots of red ones at Liverpool Lime Street. For me those really were the days.

 

William

[Tony Wright]

Hi Tony 

You are spot on as i have Westerns and Warships in my Westbourne adventures and loads of tank engines used as carriage shunters although I can remember odd days of steam only. I am too young for steam only and I am in my sixties. 

 

Please keep this thread running as I find it fascinating even if this is not what the main course of it is meant to be.

 

 

Regards

 

Peter

Thanks Peter,

 

I'm never sure what this thread is meant to be, anyway; other than encouraging folk to have a go at making their own models, whatever their memories. 

[Tony Wright]

Tony,

 

As I may have told you on told you on the couple of occasions that we met at exhibitions I was probably train spotting on Chester General when you were, but my main places were opposite the Lever Bros sidings at Port Sunlight/Bebington & on the Bidston Dock to Connahs Quay line watching 9F's hauling John Summers iron ore trains up the back to Heswall. They are dramatic in the evening against a setting sun. I now have a model of just such a train. On the Birkenhead to Chester line there was quite a mixture of GW Halls, Granges, Counties & LMS Jubilees, Patriots as well as 8F's, ex-LNWR 0-8-0's & more lowly tanks etc. I never saw a blue Semi but saw lots of red ones at Liverpool Lime Street. For me those really were the days.

 

William

Ah,

 

9Fs on the Summers' trains. An abiding memory is of watching them (banked by panniers) blasting up the bank through Connahs Quay High Level, on their way to Wrexham. In the hot summer of '59, they set the embankment on fire. 

 

As you say, William; those really were the days. Do any trainspotters stand on Connahs Quay Low Level (does it still exist?) today and watch trains on both lines? I rather doubt it.  

[APOLLO]

Tony we talked briefly about the importance of the seven or so years age difference between us both when I spoke to you at Wigan exhibition last year - and boy looking back didn't those few years difference make a difference to the diversity of what we each observed on our trainspotting activities.

 

You saw at first hand the last days of the BR glory years at many places, not least the ECML, mid to late 50's. The latter has left such an impression that you (wonderfully) model it - and I fully applaud you for that.

 

While I was born (in Wigan) in 1952 my steam memories really only started in 1963, a family holiday in Ilfracombe where I saw Spam cans etc. The Damocles sword of Dr Beeching was hovering at that time. Many day trips followed on from there with my elder train mad (worse than me !!) brother seeking the last of steam. I traveled on the S&D twice, from Bath Green park to Evercreech junction, 1964 & 5 whilst on holidays, but even that lines magic had gone - the once famous express and S&D 2-8-0 hauled freights had gone - still steam ran, but just mucky standards on stopping trains. The magic of the 50's was indeed disappearing everywhere fast.

 

So it was up north in and around Wigan in the mid 60's I did most of my spotting. Steam was dying fast, I only vaguely remember Duchesses, Jubs Pats and Scots, but my favourite locos, Britannias ran through Wigan untill their end in December 1967. The whole landscape was also changing, coal mines, coal trains and the lines they ran on closing at an ever increasing rate. I was an impressionable youth, and though I missed steam when it finally expired in 1968, I also appreciated the new, the blue / grey coaches, the new diesels, trips to Leeds, York & Doncaster in the late 60's - early 70's. Starting work in 1969 I could afford now trips to London, and it was Kings Cross & Finsbury Park that held sway, with the occasional visit to Paddington / Old Oak Common.

 

I finished spotting around 1972, can't remember the reason, perhaps a change in lifestyle etc, but I didn't lose interest in trains, or indeed model railways. I've never had a period without a model railway since 1960 or so.

 

So I now model that "rarely modeled" era 1965/8, not just late steam and green diesels but blue ones also, with blue / grey coaches and grey / blue Pullmans. As I've written before, it's the time I remember and enjoyed British Rail(ways) best.

 

Each to their own, and my every respect for such.

 

Brit15

[Bernard Lamb]

Perhaps trainspotting as a hobby was done due to post war austerity. Once incomes rose and availability of other avenues of play which cost money and resources replaced it. I do not wish to get political but it seems from a social historians view point to have really changed when the consumerism of the eighties kicked in. 

 

It was always the posh boys from the public school who gathered at the station. We never saw working class kids from the state school.

I consider it very much a class thing rather than an economic thing. You played rugby and you collected engine numbers. You played football and went to the billiard hall. Note billiards not snooker in those days.

Bernard

[Ian Smeeton]

Too yung (unfortunately) for most of this.

 

I think that my first, (and one of the few) memories of steam was being taken by my Grandfather to Wigan North Western, probably in November '67, and being put into the cab of a black 5 or 8F.

 

The memory is indistinct, but the stay at my Grandparents house at that time gave me a couple of weeks of train 'watching' from the back bedroom window of trains on the WCML.

 

I 'think' that these views, and the cabbing of that loco started my interest in railways which has endured (with  gaps) to this day.

 

I was privileged to visit Tony and Little Bytham, earlier this year, and although it is a model, an area I was not familiar with, and a time period and region I was not familiar with, My interest was more than piqued.

 

The model that I am building is an anathema to Tony's love of fast expresses and open countryside, however, it ticks all my boxes.

 

Stopping trains, faste (er) through trains, freights passing through, stopping to shunt and attach/detach traffic, and the odd terminating train, what's not to like.

 

The time period is set from 1948 to the year after I was born.

 

I have no memory of this station or its trains until much later, but it ticks all my boxes. Pre-grouping locos through to Standards, and modernisation plan diesels, with a variety of workings.

 

Variety is the operative word, here.

 

There is little variety in the current scene, unless contrived to fit the modellers perspective.

 

Variety went out wit the change to a unit-led railway.

 

When somewhere like Glasgow Central is reduced to a totally unit served terminus with nothing in the way of loco-hauled trains, there is nothing to excite the enthusiast.

 

I can see why there are few trainspotters, and their desire to recreate their world in miniature is similarly diminshed.

 

A (cliche) GWR Branch Terminus, even with stretches to the imagination, at least gave some operational interest, but the current BLT is usually nothing more than a long siding. Where is the varietry there?

 

Give me steam days, with loco changes, and the addition, or subtraction of through coaches.

 

Every major station needed a pilot, spurs and other sidings.

 

The current railway scene does not 'tick' my boxes, but I am still a railway modeller, and an 'enthusiast'.

 

Rant over,

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Clive Mortimore]

It was always the posh boys from the public school who gathered at the station. We never saw working class kids from the state school.

I consider it very much a class thing rather than an economic thing. You played rugby and you collected engine numbers. You played football and went to the billiard hall. Note billiards not snooker in those days.

Bernard

Council house, secondary modern school, trainspotter. Oh and football. Never use to go up stairs in Burton's where the snooker hall was, my mates did.

 

Certain sports seem to be associated with typical schools, I did play fly half for the school rugby team and I rowed in the school coxed four. It was a good afternoon when we beat the two local public schools in the Bedford Regatta.

[Chris Knight]

 Like yourself Tony I am of 1946  (baby boomer) vintage and remember the hordes of spotters inhabiting the long platform at B'm'th Central which afforded a good view of 

the shed. I well recall the day some 60 odd years later when I first saw a WR loco, a dirty 4951 "Pendeford Hall" in black livery plodding through eastbound on a goods -

we never called them freight trains in those days - and I was hooked thereafter on ex GW motive power. Something about the big curved nameplate perhaps? I can't really

quantify it. However a short while after I was persuaded by a school pal to join the Wessex Railway Society, a somewhat posh name for essentially a spotters club which

was run by a local railway guard called Stan Cherrett, a really good bloke. The next organised trip was to Swindon Works and shed, and the first thing I saw after exiting the

tunnel under the Bristol main line was an ex works "Castle" on the  turntable. Well that was me signed up to the copper capped lovers brigade for ever, and I would

defy anybody not to have been stirred by such a wonderful sight.

 

I apologise to the mainly ER fans on Tony's thread for this old spotter regaling you with such talk of the finest of railways ! 

[Chamby]

Like others, I have only distant childhood memories of pre-preservation steam, notably of Snow Hill, and the GC in Nottingham. I remember being scared witless when admiring a Castle class at close quarters when the safety valve blew! If familiarity is the trigger of our main interest in the hobby, then I should really be modelling blue diesels. But I don’t have anything at all from that era in my extensive collection.

 

I have found that it is the history behind what I am familiar with that has led me to my main interest. In particular, the post war nationalisation era that was so familiar to my father and his generation has captured my imagination. I think it must have something to do with a fascination for what was, visible to me only mistily through recorded time and others memories. The ability to recreate that is the special ingredient for me.

 

Phil

[Northmoor]

Tony we talked briefly about the importance of the seven or so years age difference between us both when I spoke to you at Wigan exhibition last year - and boy looking back didn't those few years difference make a difference to the diversity of what we each observed on our trainspotting activities.

 

The whole landscape was also changing, coal mines, coal trains and the lines they ran on closing at an ever increasing rate. 

 

Your second point is why the work of railway photographers like Colin Gifford is so important.  He tended to spurn the end of the platform to view the station from up on the nearby hill, having the foresight to realise that the whole urban environment was changing, not just the locomotive on the front.

 

"What if I'd been born a bit earlier"?  Do we all wonder what we missed out on; being born in '72 I completely missed BR steam, although it was probably being shown steam locomotives in action that triggered my interest/fascination/obsession.  There was still a good variety in the late 1980s that anyone born about a decade later, would largely have missed:

• Class 25/26/27/40/45/46/50/Early AC electrics
• Loco-hauled local and regional passenger services, often hauled by the above types
• A variety of DMU types (the last few years were dominated by just Class 101 and 108, in the 80s there were a dozen or more types)
• Early AC EMU types
• Vacuum-braked freights with old, short-wheelbase wagons
• Some very old carriages and wagons still in departmental use
• Quite a few steam locomotives, especially National Collection, which ran on the main line in the 80s but have been non-operational since.

So I was lucky in some ways, but ten years earlier and I might have seen more Deltics, Westerns and my real regret, the Woodhead route in operation.

[t-b-g]

I know it is only a number but sometime overnight the thread passed 1,500,000 views.

 

That's a lot!

 

Congratulations to Tony W and all those who have contributed.

[Roger Sunderland]

Like yourself Tony I am of 1946  (baby boomer) vintage and remember the hordes of spotters inhabiting the long platform at B'm'th Central which afforded a good view of 

the shed. I well recall the day some 60 odd years later when I first saw a WR loco, a dirty 4951 "Pendeford Hall" in black livery plodding through eastbound on a goods -

we never called them freight trains in those days - and I was hooked thereafter on ex GW motive power. Something about the big curved nameplate perhaps? I can't really

quantify it. However a short while after I was persuaded by a school pal to join the Wessex Railway Society, a somewhat posh name for essentially a spotters club which

was run by a local railway guard called Stan Cherrett, a really good bloke. The next organised trip was to Swindon Works and shed, and the first thing I saw after exiting the

tunnel under the Bristol main line was an ex works "Castle" on the  turntable. Well that was me signed up to the copper capped lovers brigade for ever, and I would

defy anybody not to have been stirred by such a wonderful sight.

 

I apologise to the mainly ER fans on Tony's thread for this old spotter regaling you with such talk of the finest of railways !

 

I never knew you were a member of the copperclad lovers society Chris!!!!!!

[TrevorP1]

Tony, Clive and all

 

I was actually born in 1954 and I guess I was about 5 when my father first took me down to the station. It wasn't until I was a good few years older that  I actually saw trains pass by at speed in the New Forest or at Eastleigh. Not the same as the ECML in the '50s but at least it was something.

 

We also had some fantastic holiday journeys to Cornwall in the early '60s, sitting on our suitcases in the corridors because all the seats were taken. The bustle at places like Exeter and Plymouth was something to behold. My Ian Allan books were too precious to underline the numbers, so I would write them down in a separate notebook. Some of these survive to this day and it is possible to trace the journey by means of the numbers written down. If only I could actually remember what I know I saw!

 

Dad wasn't a railway enthusiast, although he travelled thousands of miles on the railways of India during WW2, but he encouraged me. Thinking back it helped me learn to read, write and tell the time, encouraged my geography and opened my eyes to another world. Dad had a pal, Eddie, who was a goods guard and in my early teens I travelled all over the place in a brake van. Occasionally Eddie worked passenger trains and one day he had a boat train from Waterloo to Southampton Docks. I was bundled into the cab of the Crompton at Waterloo and sat in the secondman's seat all the way to the Docks, save for passing through Wimbledon where I had to hide on the floor out of sight!

 

As to my interests, I enjoy the 'railway family' rather than just steam engines but the railway is obviously not the place it was. I get a thrill from seeing a steam special on the main line with the engine working hard but equally, to me, an HST has a 'presence'. We regularly holiday adjacent to the main line in Cornwall and each night at about 10:45 I take the dog out for a 'last wee', timed to perfection so that I can see the 'Up Beds' and it's class 57 pass by in the pitch black. It still makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. - I'm easily pleased!

 

A few posts ago Tony mentioned the 9F hauled ore trains to Shotton. Two months ago we moved to Flintshire (or is it Clwyd, even the Post Office seems confused?) so I now have a new interest in finding out 'how things were' around here. We're not far from a trackbed which was once part of the Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay, now part of a local 'heritage trail'.

 

Trevor

[Lecorbusier]

Perhaps trainspotting as a hobby was done due to post war austerity. Once incomes rose and availability of other avenues of play which cost money and resources replaced it. I do not wish to get political but it seems from a social historians view point to have really changed when the consumerism of the eighties kicked in. You could not walk down the street and show off a list of numbers anyone with time and patience could collect, but that new pair of trainers. Well they cost a lot and clearly marked you out as someone with cash. Personally I never caught that idea, which might explain my job and hobby.

Richard

Purely anecdotally as to why spotting was so big in the post war years (no science or research to this statement what so ever) but from discussions and observations the reasons seem twofold to me

 

... firstly the sheer range and number of locos running on the lines plus the allure of steam I think would make spotting attractive (the old adage all little boys wanted to be an engine driver springs to mind). Access was also much easier and the system hadn't been 'streamlined' and 'improved' by Beeching.

 

...... secondly it strikes me that other available amusements were much more limited (certainly in the 50s). The scope and range of television and radio I think was much more limited - especially for kids. Access to music and a tangible teenage culture was only just beginning. Range and scope of toys etc was much more limited etc etc.

 

.... So on the one hand it could be argued that the hobby was more attractive and on the other there were simply fewer options open to kids.

 

As I say, no first hand knowledge to this statement or systematic research, just the impression I have gleaned from conversations.

Edited January 21, 2018 by Lecorbusier

[Ian Smeeton]

Ian,

 

One is Anorak of Fire. I can't immediately find it, so can't tell you the author or the publisher, but it's good (or it could have been just a TV programme; the mind crumbles). 

 

Another is Shed Bashing With The Beatles, Phil Mathison, Dead Good Publications, 2006: ISBN 0-9546937-3-6. It's also good. 

 

I'll try and find some of the others, but with over 2,500 books in my collection, they get rather scattered around (I'm no librarian!). 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Thanks for the suggestions/recommendations, Tony.

 

Books now odered.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[johnarcher]

I'm beginning to feel I must be a bit odd (it has been suggested before).

I am of the generation being discussed (b. 1950) but was never a train-spotter at all. Are there others like that out there, or am I unique (euphemism for weird)?

 

Maybe that's why my modelling interests are not aimed at when I was young, and hence fall rather into the 'model what you never saw but wish you had' school.

In my case

1930ish GW (inspired by mother's tales of her youth then in Devon and Cornwall)

Irish narrow gauge (inspired by an inborn love for the rustic, informal and eccentric. Tempted by Bishop's Castle one day too)

and, if I had more time and money, maybe broad gauge by the sea at Dawlish.

[Tony Wright]

 Like yourself Tony I am of 1946  (baby boomer) vintage and remember the hordes of spotters inhabiting the long platform at B'm'th Central which afforded a good view of 

the shed. I well recall the day some 60 odd years later when I first saw a WR loco, a dirty 4951 "Pendeford Hall" in black livery plodding through eastbound on a goods -

we never called them freight trains in those days - and I was hooked thereafter on ex GW motive power. Something about the big curved nameplate perhaps? I can't really

quantify it. However a short while after I was persuaded by a school pal to join the Wessex Railway Society, a somewhat posh name for essentially a spotters club which

was run by a local railway guard called Stan Cherrett, a really good bloke. The next organised trip was to Swindon Works and shed, and the first thing I saw after exiting the

tunnel under the Bristol main line was an ex works "Castle" on the  turntable. Well that was me signed up to the copper capped lovers brigade for ever, and I would

defy anybody not to have been stirred by such a wonderful sight.

 

I apologise to the mainly ER fans on Tony's thread for this old spotter regaling you with such talk of the finest of railways ! 

Wasn't 1946 an excellent year, Chris? 

 

Though there's no need top apologise for regaling us with your 'spotter (or could it be 'spotty' memories?), I do find it strange that your allegiance (coming from Bournemouth) should be towards the WR rather than the SR. Folk have asked me why my allegiance is to things ex-LNER, having been born and bred in Chester. The answer is simple; because of having Yorkshire paternal grandparents, living within easy reach of Retford Doncaster and Sheffield, I saw the ECML (and the ex-GC main line) during its last steam-hauled years. Having seen the work of Gresley (even Thompson) and Peppercorn (at speed at times), how could I be anything but 'hooked'? 

 

During my trainspotting days, I envied anyone living down south, because they would have seen Southern locos. They might have been running on Mars for 'spotters from the North; the nearest we got to 'green' was the rake of carriages in the sidings from time to time which formed a service from Birkenhead to the South Coast. What was the most northerly point for SR locos to regularly work to? Oxford? Still too far away! 

 

It was to be in my post-trainspotting years that I finally got to see Southern Region steam (though I admit to underlining most of what I saw, and I'm glad I did for my own reference, years later). I'd seen some Bulleids at Waterloo some couple of years before, but, in my 19th year, in 1965, I thought I'd better get some pictures of those elusive SR Pacifics. What a delight it was, too. A kind of weird time-travel, because here was a class one steam main line still steam-operated (between Waterloo and Bournemouth); at the time when my familiar main lines further north and east were almost all diesel and electric in their motive power. 

 

Bournemouth Central was an obvious destination, and in August 1965 I took the following pictures. The negatives are better than the scans. 

 

 

 

 

I honestly can't believe, Chris, how anyone could choose a modest 4-6-0 type (even though it might have a copper-topped chimney) to be more interested in than these wonderful rebuilt Bulleids. I cannot remember if there were any WR locos still around in the Bournemouth area in 1965, but if they were, I paid them no attention. Other than the Kings (which never came to Chester in BR days) and a few oddities or suburban tanks, all the other ex-GWR classes were familiar to me as a trainspotter, and I always counted them being of less interest than the MR types I saw. Perhaps there was too much uniformity in their appearances and, particularly, in their names. Wags at the end of Platform 3/4 at the General suggested an alternative name for 7929 as THAT'S ALL. There was another, rather rude alternative, ending in 'all', but this is a well-mannered thread, so we won't go there!  

 

I think what most excited (and impressed) me about the SR main line I saw in 1965 was, as alluded to, the (almost) complete (still) dominance of steam. 

 

The following pictures were also taken by me in 1964/1965, showing what some of the other main lines were like in comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

The WR was almost all-diesel by 1965, other than the final flings of the Castles to Worcester. 

 

 

Though Chester still had some steam, the expresses were in the hands of EE Type 4s or the ubiquitous Brush 4s. This a Holyhead-Euston express, previously the jobs for Scots, Brits and, even, Semis or Prinnies. By 1965, the ex-LMS Pacifics had all gone! 

 

 

At least my favourite GN main line had the peerless Deltics. The flat crossing had recently been taken out and the north-east link was about to be severed in this shot at Retford, taken in the same month as I took the SR shots. At least some Thompson cars (if only as strengtheners) were still in front-line service. 

 

 

Any surviving ECML steam motive power had gone further north to lie abandoned (this V2 at York, in October 1965). Others accompanying it that day included SILURIAN, BOSWELL, PEREGRINE and BORDERER, never to turn a wheel under there own steam again. Some had gone even further north for a final fling 'twixt Glasgow and Aberdeen. Foolishly, I missed the opportunity (though I was given it) to see the last rites of the A4s on the three-hour expresses. 

 

Apologies if some of these pictures have been shown before. There are many more....................

 

Please keep those memories coming.........................

Edited January 21, 2018 by Tony Wright

[Hroth]

Did Kings ever get as far as Chester?  I was under the impression that they weren't allowed any further north than Wolverhampton,  The biggest GWR type to Chester was the Castles, and despite it being a "main line", only small stuff made it to Birkenhead Woodside, though 28xx and 47xx brought the goods up!

[Tony Wright]

Purely anecdotally as to why spotting was so big in the post war years (no science or research to this statement what so ever) but from discussions and observations the reasons seem twofold to me

 

... firstly the sheer range and number of locos running on the lines plus the allure of steam I think would make spotting attractive (the old adage all little boys wanted to be an engine driver springs to mind). Access was also much easier and the system hadn't been 'streamlined' and 'improved' by Beeching.

 

...... secondly it strikes me that other available amusements were much more limited (certainly in the 50s). The scope and range of television and radio I think was much more limited - especially for kids. Access to music and a tangible teenage culture was only just beginning. Range and scope of toys etc was much more limited etc etc.

 

.... So on the one hand it could be argued that the hobby was more attractive and on the other there were simply fewer options open to kids.

 

As I say, no first hand knowledge to this statement or systematic research, just the impression I have gleaned from conversations.

Tim,

 

I think you've summed it up very well. 

 

As well as trainspotting, our gang's (not in the current sense of the word) pursuits included endless (and never-ending) games of football or cricket dependent on the season. Fishing was also tried, though I cannot now conceive of a more boring hobby (cue outraged responses!). 

 

The thing is, those activities could all be combined at Chester. The Roodee (Chester's racecourse) had the main lines running to Paddington and the N. Wales coast alongside on a low viaduct. Though locos' numbers on the WR lines (the nearer ones) could be easily seen (apart from grubby GWR cast ones), those on the MR lines could only be identified (the type) by their outline. No matter, at one end a wooden footbridge attached to the bridge over the Dee was within an easy dash, after the signals at Crane Street had been viewed to give an indication of an imminent train. Thus, the games were temporarily halted to get the numbers. Or, some useless sports kid (every gang had one) was instructed to diligently take any numbers of locos which might pass by and tell us afterwards (is this cheating?). He would certainly prefer to be our 'spotter than be given a good kicking for letting a goal in or dropping a catch! 

 

Fishing in the Shropshire Union Canal could also be accompanied by trainspotting, at the foot of the Northgate Locks. 

 

We even combined football with trainspotting at Donny. There was a rec' (recreation ground) adjacent to the railway in Doncaster, though I have no idea where, now. Both systems were level, so games could continue and the numbers committed to memory at the same time (again the sporting duffers were doing their job well). 

 

Happy days. Though kids might still play sport on the Roodee at Chester, any noting of numbers (even though the only surviving roads are the nearer ones) will be non-existent.  

Edited January 21, 2018 by Tony Wright

[Tony Wright]

Did Kings ever get as far as Chester?  I was under the impression that they weren't allowed any further north than Wolverhampton,  The biggest GWR type to Chester was the Castles, and despite it being a "main line", only small stuff made it to Birkenhead Woodside, though 28xx and 47xx brought the goods up!

Not in BR days.

 

After the diselisation of the far West, the Kings were concentrated on the Wolverhampton-Paddington route. Though previously unusual, they then worked regularly to Shrewsbury, but no further (apart from 6000, which got as far as Ruabon on a rail tour). 

 

In more recent times, the surviving Kings have worked into Chester of the ex-WR. Someone must have done some recalculations, or some bridges strengthened. 

[Compound2632]

What was the most northerly point for SR locos to regularly work to? Oxford? Still too far away! 

 

Cheltenham? The Class U moguls worked the M&SWJR in its final years. Not pacifics! In Firing Days at Saltley Terry Essery describes a trip to Bath with a Black 5 that had to be failed on arrival; Bath was short of engines so he was looking hopefully at the several light pacifics on shed but it was not to be. So no pacific up the Lickey!