"When we were young"

I was lucky enough to grow up in a railway town, Wolverton "carriage works" and lived quite close to the main west coast line so my interest started very young.

Talking of bunking off, friends and I would go down to one of the storage sidings and play on the class 08 that was sitting there rusting away. No security to speak of back then and deffo no CCTV!

Also the works would have an open day every summer and you could wander around the work shops un-supervised! I even got to see the APT and I sat in the cab too on one of these open days. Also Wolverton is where the royal train is stored so got to see that up close too, though it was roped off to stop you getting too close!

My first "train set" was the Hornby Duchess of Sutherland (the original went the way of the car boot - thanks mum n dad) and my uncle who was into model railways gave me loads of track several GWR pannier tanks and loads of rolling stock when he converted to N gauge. Then as most boys do, I discovered girls and motor bikes and the train set didnt get a look in till a couple of years ago when my wife bought me the royal scot set from M&S (I think she regrets that now LOL)
Steve

QUOTE (frame69 @ 21 Jan 2009, 14:12) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Can you remember when your interest in rm started? Mine started because of a layout my dad was building "for me" in our loft, sadly my dad didnt take any photos of this so I only have vague memories of it. He told me it was quite large because one of his haulage runs ( he was a lorry driver) took him to the hornby factory in london taking zinc ingots

Blimey - that's going back to the late fifties......

I suppose the thing that got me interested in railways is that the Kent Coast mainline ran at the bottom of my parent's garden and in those days it was still steam operated (just).

Seeds were firmly planted on a day trip to the Bluebell in the Summer of 1966 no big locos then!

The rest just that trains have always been there.

Regards

My late father worked as a signalman for L.M.S and then B.R. for most of the time in the main box at St. Pancras. With his concessionary tickets we always travelled by train as a family. Also, as a child, I lived in north London very close to the mainline into St Pancras or King's Cross but I can't remember which.

With this background it is not surprising that I had an interest in railways although not as a source of employment. I saved up for and got a Triang set when I was about nine or ten years old which would have been 1953/4. A friend and I would make layouts on the carpet. They were usually ovals but sometimes end to end with curves going left and right alternately because we didn't have many straights. There was no possiblity of a permanent layout with seven people in a small house.

Lost interest as a teenager but regained it about the age of 30 when my own boys were about 3 and 5. Have been a modeller ever since. There's something about a model railway has that model cars, boats or planes just don't have.

I was six in 1963 and we had lived in Ayr for a couple of years. At school I could see the last steam locos working out there lives in the yards adjacent to the school. My grandfather worked for Govan's making prestressed concrete forms. This was situated down in the harbour and every so often a train would arrive with raw materials and to take finished product away. On the odd occaison I was down there I would get a ride in the cab of the loco up and down the harbour tracks. I remember I was terribly dissapointed one day when this thing like a car was the loco and not the usual steamer. I recieved a Triang freight set for my sixth birthday which I think cost 6pounds 11shillings. Not a lot of money now but near a kings ransom then. I haven't stopped with trains since then.

Charles Emerson
Queensland
Australia

In my early days I lived in the German village Stadtlauringen until 1959. This village had have a branchline termini with all the facilities which were necessary. The locomotive crew lived with their family in the same village and the children of them went with me to school.
The whistling of the loco in the vally was our clock because the timetable did not really change. The first train left Stadtlauringen at 05:02 am and the last reached Stadtlauringen at 18:55 pm. The last whistle blast at the entire signal board of the station was the ultimate sign for all children to reach their home.
The first loco I saw - climbed on as I was 6 years - was this type.

class: bayr. GtL 4/4 => BR 98.8

On the former line 418e Stadtlauringen - Rottershausen worked the locomotive 98 835 and the full service was held at Stadtlauringen station. So I was be able to watch every day (after school) what was happend in and around the station.
Since this time I'm infected with the virus "Railway" and I've this chronic ailment.

Our garden backed onto the Oxted line between Sanderstead and Riddlesdown; even better, there was a signal, so the trains stopped by our garden. I can just remember some steam locos - the drivers were always friendly and waved as they went by. Some even chatted if the train was stopped. That changed to 33s and Class 1 rakes, and Thumpers.

We were just over half a mile away from Purley Oaks on the Brighton line. In the long school summer holidays I used to walk there to meet my mum off the London train every day after work, chatted to a lovely Caribbean man who was the station porter for years, and loved to see the fast and semi-fast emus rattling by to Brighton or Portsmouth (the long way). All of the usual EMU suspects; the Pompey trains were always 4-CORs, though.

There's still something about trains that I love. Really enjoy travelling by train, except in the London rush-hour. That's how I got involved.

mal

My first trainset was a Freightmaster from Triang-Hornby (Didn't realise it then, but I've since researched it thanks to the works of Pat Hammond). I reckon Christmas 1965. Have been entranced by contents of red and yellow boxes ever since- in these days they used to work out of the box! Built in Britain meant something and chineese toys were regarded as something very inferior (that parts becoming true again!).

My parents used to visit Glasgow by train from neighboring Paisley and it was probably these train rides that got me interested and secured my first train set. Also because we used to visit Santa at Lewis's and there was always a Triang Hornby layout on display. I can just remember steam trains which terrified me as they steamed into Paisley Gilmour Street. For my trainset a Jinty 3F with real steam followed- probably because of this, then in the next year a Triang Hornby E3001 electric , because the Glasgow- Greenock line had just been electrified and this was the latest thing!

Happy days.

Russell

The first layout I was involved with was an Ever-Ready 00 gauge underground set. My father bought this for me (well, that's what he said to my mother!) but he spent much time on it, including home-made colour light signals which actually stopped the train when at danger. No photos, alas.

We moved house and a spare bedroom next to my bedroom came into use as the railway room. We had a continuous two track main line with a junction station with a branch line terminus over the storage sidings. One grainy photograph exists!

My secondary school was alongside the Mid-Kent main line close to St John's Station in SE London, and offered much opportunity for train-spotting, to be a distraction from my maths lessons in particular. Getting to Stratford on the Liverpool Street line was also easy from where I lived, giving views of another Region's locos and rolling stock.

At home Dad and I then moved up to the loft and rebuilt the layout with a riverside terminus and a traverser off the main line so that we could do both continuous and end-to-end running. But by the time we were nearing completion I was approaching 'A' levels, preparing for college and had also found out about 'Girls'! Fortunately I'd also taken up an interest in photography and have a couple of dozen photos (black and white) of this layout.

After 'A' levels I got well involved in other things, went off to work, left home, etc. It was only after early retirement eleven years ago I decided to get back into modelling again.

Regards,
John Webb

My first dive into railways was not as long ago as most of you, being only 32, was when my mum brought me a Thomas train set, I was always into the books, still have them all, and so as Mum was always into railways having grown up next to railways down London and then in the Birmingham area she was the influence for both me and Andii, who also got a set (not sure if his came first or at the same time)

As brothers do, we combined our trian sets to get a bigger one, this got expanded on so Dad made us a hinged wall mounted board in our bedroom. This very quickly became full so a quick extention was added, also becoming quickly full. We then some how moved up into the loft, Dad put a floor down and some electrics in and we built a railway up there, it had a twin track main line with two statons and a branchline. It never got finished, we played for hours on it, relaying track on a regular basis as we got more loco's and coaches, but as you do, girls, school got in the way. Andii became a dad himself, I moved away with work so Dad made us dismantle it.

Andii made one in his loft but it wasnt until he saw an appeal in the local paper for help finding a new home for the local model club that we both got back into it. Turns out that the club secetary was and old school teacher, another we new threw the RAFA club.

Now 5 + years later, Andii is the club President, is building a new layout, Broughton & Marwood and doing a great job converting an A1 into Tornado. As for me, I got married (no kids for me) and am slowly building my own layout for the first time, Milldale and doing converstions, and very much enjoying this wounderful hobby of ours

Brian
CME Milldale