How would YOU describe it?

[GNER 373]

Many people have asked me the age old question....

Why do you like Trains?....The honest answer?! I don't know!!!

It's not one thing, it's many but very difficult to put into words.

So here's your chance to put YOUR answers down and share them with the world!

Is it a sound, a sight, a fond memory, a job, an obsession!???

Look forward to hearing some stories!!!

 

[MidnightFlyer]

That is actually really hard to describe. My Dad took me to do that chord that took you from Grantham-Sleaford on the ECML before it closed. I've loved railways ever since!

 

[GNER 373]

That is actually really hard to describe. My Dad took me to do that chord that took you from Grantham-Sleaford on the ECML before it closed. I've loved railways ever since!

Nice start Matt, My 'obsession' started from being taken to a stretch of Line near to Tyne Yard at Birtley (just outside of Newcastle on the ECML) for as far back as I can remember by older family members, such great memories I still visit that patch now! But still it's so much more!!!

 

[90019]

Mostly, I find the engineering and things like how the whole system works together interesting.
The trains themselves, I'm not completely sure what it is that interests me about them.

 

[GNER 373]

Now I think about it, I used to visit family in Grantham and there was a spot where Trains came flying out of a tunnel mouth on the ECML about a 5 minute walk from the house...fantastic!

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Another time I asked my Dad how people knew what times trains ran. We got on to timetables, and I was so fasinated I started to collect them. I now have about 3,000-4,000 timetables, past and present. Random

 

[Kernowfem]

My earliest memory is of me being in my pushchair on the platform of newark northgate station with my grandad watching the intercitys roar past. I loved the beasts. From that point on i guess i was hooked. 30 years later i still am...

 

[GNER 373]

Mostly, I find the engineering and things like how the whole system works together interesting.
The trains themselves, I'm not completely sure what it is that interests me about them.

Good call I think the Railway Engineering in this country is part of our social build up...after all we invented the whole thing! Maybe it's the historic factor! And there's nothing quite like standing next to a living, 'breathing' steam engine!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

My earliest memory is of me being in my pushchair on the platform of newark northgate station with my grandad watching the intercitys roar past. I loved the beasts. From that point on i guess i was hooked. 30 years later i still am...

Great story! I can remember standing on Newcastle Central Station with my mittened hands over my ears as HST's pulled away...I still wince when they leave any station that I happen to be at hahaha!

 

[Lampshade]

Mostly, I find the engineering and things like how the whole system works together interesting.
The trains themselves, I'm not completely sure what it is that interests me about them.

Seconded.

Also, to some extent I'm more interested in the stations than the trains, I like the history and the architecture

 

[Kernowfem]

Good call I think the Railway Engineering in this country is part of our social build up...after all we invented the whole thing! Maybe it's the historic factor! And there's nothing quite like standing next to a living, 'breathing' steam engine!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Great story! I can remember standing on Newcastle Central Station with my mittened hands over my ears as HST's pulled away...I still wince when they leave any station that I happen to be at hahaha!

Oh indeedy...The front was no problem, the back was shockingly noisey...Bloody great!!! Also it was the rush you got as they shot through the station.....

 

[GNER 373]

Another time I asked my Dad how people knew what times trains ran. We got on to timetables, and I was so fasinated I started to collect them. I now have about 3,000-4,000 timetables, past and present. Random

Wow! That's an impressive collection!

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Wow! That's an impressive collection!

Thanks - stuff from every TOC & all leaflets from the past 7 years. probably nearer to 3000 but ive never counted.

 

[Adam_Harrison]

I cant describe why I like trains I just do ! I think its something to do with the diesel engines ,smell and sound! along with the sensation of speed to don't get in a car.

 

[Green Lane]

When I was very young, we used to travel from the Wirral to relatives in St. Helens.

I remember well seeing the Class 503 electric trains with those funny "wires" on the front.

We'd get on board, but I remember very well those gaps in the electrified third rail, somewhere under the Mersey tunnel where all the light bulbs would go out and the train would just coast along for a bit in complete darkness before the lights would flicker back on again and you'd just be jolted quite violenty all over the place. I thought it was really scary like being on a ghost train or something. Of course I would always want to go back on it again!

Then when we got to (what seemed to me at the time) the huge Lime Street Station, I was like a kid in a candy shop, seeing all those different types of trains and individual diesel locos running up and down the tracks. The noise off them was incredible. We used to get on what I childishly called "the bus train" as I wasn't at the time accustomed to a train which sounded exactly like a bus. (With hindsight it probably was a Pacer or something, but I honestly can't remember now).

Of course when I later on became a student and then got to travel around London etc.. I was totally blown away by Waterloo station, and swarms of commuters running onto trains, slamming the door shut and then moments later, several trains all seemed to race out of the station simultaneously. Until then, I'd never quite seen rail transport running on such a huge scale, with such precision and complexity, particulary around the Clapham Junction area. Of course I've been fascinated with trains and rail travel ever since.

For some reason though, I just can't get interested at all in trains in other countries, only trains in the UK seem to hold my interest.

 

[GNER 373]

When I was very young, we used to travel from the Wirral to relatives in St. Helens.

I remember well seeing the Class 503 electric trains with those funny "wires" on the front.

We'd get on board, but I remember very well those gaps in the electrified third rail, somewhere under the Mersey tunnel where all the light bulbs would go out and the train would just coast along for a bit in complete darkness before the lights would flicker back on again and you'd just be jolted quite violenty all over the place. I thought it was really scary like being on a ghost train or something. Of course I would always want to go back on it again!

Then when we got to (what seemed to me at the time) the huge Lime Street Station, I was like a kid in a candy shop, seeing all those different types of trains and individual diesel locos running up and down the tracks. We used to get on what I childishly called "the bus train" as I wasn't at the time accustomed to a train which sounded exactly like a bus. (With hindsight it probably was a Pacer or something, but I honestly can't remember now).

Of course when I later on became a student and then got to travel around London etc.. I was totally blown away by Waterloo station, and swarms of commuters running onto trains, slamming the door shut and then moments later, several trains all seemed to race out of the station simultaneously. Until then, I'd never quite seen train transport running on such a huge scale, with such precision and complexity, particulary around the Clapham Junction area. Of course I've been fascinated with train travel ever since.

For some reason though, I just can't get interested at all in trains in other countries, only trains in the UK seem to hold my interest.

Great Story! I love Lime St. I go there to see my Mum on a regular occasion! It's fantastic coming through that tunnel and into the wonderland that is Lime Street!!!

I second the whole 'other countries' rail systems although I can appriciate the French TGV's.

As for the Train Bus I bet you that they were 142 Pacers (they were and still are called Rail-buses round this area)!

Clapham Junction is MENTAL!!!

 

[LE Greys]

For me, it's something about this combination of simplicity and complexity. If you look at a railway map from overhead, it's just lines on the ground. Get closer, and you can see the maze of different routes taken, the interaction of train and route. Closer still, and you see this network of rails, sleepers, stock rails, signals, wires, everything. When you're really close, it's just a wheel and a rail.

Then there's the feeling of a departure, an arrival, an express zooming through, or just a quiet station at peace. It's something you can't express with poetry. There is nowhere more dynamic than a station like York, always changing with every minute of the day. And the noise, of course, from the scream of a Valenta turbocharger, to the snarl of a 158, the strange sounds of a 66 or the rumble and rattle of an MTU. Even electrics give you the roar of cooling fans on a loco or the howl of motors on a 5WES. As for steam...

So, where did it come from? It may even come from before I was born, something about the sound of steel wheels over jointed rail (when my mother was pregnant, she used to commute into London and the ECML slows still had jointed rail). Still, whatever it is, it gets under your skin and never gets out again.

 

[GNER 373]

For me, it's something about this combination of simplicity and complexity. If you look at a railway map from overhead, it's just lines on the ground. Get closer, and you can see the maze of different routes taken, the interaction of train and route. Closer still, and you see this network of rails, sleepers, stock rails, signals, wires, everything. When you're really close, it's just a wheel and a rail.

Then there's the feeling of a departure, an arrival, an express zooming through, or just a quiet station at peace. It's something you can't express with poetry. There is nowhere more dynamic than a station like York, always changing with every minute of the day. And the noise, of course, from the scream of a Valenta turbocharger, to the snarl of a 158, the strange sounds of a 66 or the rumble and rattle of an MTU. Even electrics give you the roar of cooling fans on a loco or the howl of motors on a 5WES. As for steam...

So, where did it come from? It may even come from before I was born, something about the sound of steel wheels over jointed rail (when my mother was pregnant, she used to commute into London and the ECML slows still had jointed rail). Still, whatever it is, it gets under your skin and never gets out again.

Here, Here!

I actually got delayed in York around two weeks ago for around an hour and I was by myself so I just sat and watched a magical world just unfold out! The sounds, colours, smells....

I totally understand what you mean!

 

[shinkansen1966]

I just like EVERYTHING about railways. Timetable, maps, rolling stock, stations, the travel experience.

As as my username suggestions, my personal highlight was a trip on the shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train. You never see the word bullet train there, always shinkansen.

 

[GNER 373]

I just like EVERYTHING about railways. Timetable, maps, rolling stock, stations, the travel experience.

As as my username suggestions, my personal highlight was a trip on the shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train. You never see the word bullet train there, always shinkansen.

That must have been something, I'm pretty jealous! Did you go to Japan just for this or as part of a job etc? As my Avatar suggests this was the highlight of mine!