Recent content by beardedbrit

Boston (North and South Stations)

I traveled to Sicily (Taormina) from London in the mid 1960s when I was at uni and do remember the overnight Calais-Rome train as described above. Of course this was then followed by another overnight train from Rome to the south, going on the train ferry from Villa San Giovanni to Messina. I...

I'm amazed that no-one has mentioned "Streaks" yet (LNER class A4 Pacifics, for you young 'uns)

A Hornby 'O' gauge clockwork train set was my gateway drug in the early 1950s, along with frequent travel on Southern Region suburban trains. Fast forward to a new home in north London in the mid 1950s, which meant I could happily spend hours on the footbridge at Hornsey station on the ECML or...

I did a similarly long trip in 1964, Munich-Athens (cheap student rate ticket). The two overnight portions were Munich to northwestern Yugoslavia, and Macedonia to Thessalonika or thereabouts

In 1964 I worked for a few months as a lab technician at the BR Research Centre at Alexandra Palace during what would now be called a gap year. Even armed with good Chemistry and Physics A-level grades I was paid about £8 per week - plus priv travel, which was a big bonus back then in my...

The PCC cars were the mainstay of Boston's MBTA Green Line until the 1970s, and they still run the Mattapan - Ashmont Red Line shuttle (https://railfan.com/photo-line-bostons-streetcar-survivors/ )

Curious as to why there were few through engine workings between London and Newcastle. Crew scheduling (you could presumably do a Newcastle-Grantham round trip in a single shift) or something else ?

I recall trip on the southbound Elizabethan in September 1961 - don't know the exact date but the Edinburgh Festival was in its last week so probably around Thursday 7th . A4 60022 Mallard kept good time until somewhere between Retford and Newark, where we were stopped for a good 20-25 minutes...

We'd welcome him here in Boston where the MBTA management has been a disaster for years, resulting in a sharply worded critical report from the Federal Transport Administration earlier this year ordering prompt remediation of many safety issues on the subway. There are of course politics at...

Only one trip through Taunton in 1957, changing from a London train onto the Minehead branch train, but I do remember the busy station you describe. 1638589673 Most of our family holiday travel in the '50s from London was electrics on the Southern Region. But I do vividly remember a 1961 holiday...

1960 +/- a couple of years was peak spotting time for me too. Memories of Sunday afternoons spent bashing Willesden / OOC / Cricklewood / Neasden sheds all of which were easy to enter. Weekdays after school a friend and I would do Kentish Town - looking back, a somewhat foolhardy thing to do as...

hadn't heard of the Matthew Engel book - looks like a good read! Thanks.

One wonders whether a hypothetical 1923 nationalisation, most likely followed by rationalization and cost cutting measures, would have left the railway less able to cope with the huge demands placed on the system by WW2; one of the advantages of competition between the Big 4 companies was that...

Around four hours - London to Glasgow/Edinburgh is my comfort zone these days. In my misbegotten youth I survived a 36 hour through train journey from Munich to Athens - second class, student fare, no couchettes. Route was Austria-Llubjiana-Zagreb- Belgrade-Skopje-Thesssaloniki-Athens. Probably...