Just spotted this thread, and I've been reading the posts with interest. I have nothing particular to add in a technical sense, but it does evoke some memories that I'll share. It's quite funny reflecting on them now, as an enthusiast.
My aunt and uncle were the stewards at Glengonnar school camp in Abington, where kids from Glasgow, who wouldn't otherwise get a holiday, would be sent for a holiday in the Clyde Valley.
I was only a little 'un back then {10 or so}, but I remember my older cousin, on one visit to see my aunt and uncle, taking me up the hill to Abington station where we would watch the trains.......and this was long before I had any interest in railways.
He liked the fast passenger trains, while I liked the noisier clanking freight trains. I can remember what must have been pairs of Cl 50s that he was most excited about, but I don't really remember much about the freights except the noise.
Then I remember one visit, and there was suddenly lots of work going on, and my uncle explained the line was being electrified and that the diesels would be replaced by faster electric trains soon. I remember being really upset to hear this, as I thought my favourite trains would disappear!
I remember the work going on for quite a few family visits to uncle Bill and Auntie Irene's with masts and wires appearing, and lots of diggers and earthworks, which I guess must have been the loop being constructed or lengthened? (I was young enough to be entertained by the earth moving vehicles in between trains!). But the trains were still all diesels, so it was still just as good as always.....and sometimes there was an engineering train there as well.....and I recall there being a loco at both ends of those (on reflection, probably 20s?)
Then, one visit, which I now know must have been in 1974, I saw my first electric train pass Abington. I have no idea what class or on what service it was, but I do recall very vividly that I wasn't disappointed with the new electric trains at all! And my freight trains were still exactly the same! So for the 10 year old kid that was just beginning to like trains, WCML electrification was a win-win!
Then, over the Christmas holidays that year, Abington was often the venue for big family gatherings, so we were all there one day between Christmas and New year. It's pitch dark by 4pm there at that time of year, and my cousin said he had something to show me outside. He walked me down about 500m past all the empty dorm huts down to the banks of the Clyde where there was an uninterrupted view of the line on the opposite side down towards Crawford and Elvanfoot and with not much light pollution (the A74, as was, much much quieter then!).......and that was where I gasped in amazement when I saw my first arcing pantograph.....and how much of the countryside it illuminated. I was enormously excited about this at that age, and my Uncle Jimmy explained this phenomenon to me in great detail later on with the aid of a napkin drawing at our Christmas dinner table!
I thought of that moment about 6 years later in the front coach of an overnight service behind a 83, as the sparking panto illuminated the Clyde valley......the novelty never left me......!
I didn't become a proper enthusiast until I was inluenced by new school friends in 1978, when I was old enough to appreciate it better, but a pair of 50s northbound on the climb up Beattock must have been epic thrash value!
