47403
Established Member
Another trip back in time around the summer of 1987, the 6 weeks hols, was always a fest of Footy, Tyne Yard, Central Station and the local turns.
we always planned one trip for the start and one for the end of the school hols. A few of my friends and I we're planning a trip somewhere and seen as the start up one had seen us trip up to Scotland for the day, mainly to scratch off as many of the 47/7's as we could in a day, the plan was to venture South, we tried to convince our parents to let us go overnight to London but were all met with an emphatic, NO!!!
So as we sat at Tyne Yard, whinging about our London jaunt scuppered, awaiting the possibility of seeing a Class 25 or 26 on the Millerhill freight, we were discussing where to go in a couple of weeks time, a friend and I said, Crewe was good, there's Carlisle to take in, plus Warrington, throw some Leccy bashing in too. Then the brains of the group said, comeback via Manchester and hook up with the Liverpool-Newcastle home, yeah thats the trip sorted then.
Thats when it got a bit devious, now we'd been allowed to do an overnighter on Carlisle, due to numbers of us but after the London jaunt had went sour because of the distance, we were dubious wether it may go the same with Crewe, so we'd tell our parents that we'd decided Carlisle's better than nowhere. mainly so we could use the previous overnighter as a bargaining tool, telling our parents, well the last time we went overnight to Carlisle it was fine and we all came back unharmed. So after a 47 rolled in from Millerhill, we set off for home and We all agreed unashamedly, we'd tell our parents we were going to Carlisle but the whole plan was to go to Crewe. The subject had to breached quickly, because we had to make sure we had our rail riders vouchers topped up and savings to raid, not least parents pockets too. My Dad was fine, who's going AND how much will this cost me, I suppose you'll want bait and a new flask too seen as you bust the last one. With parents humming and harring, who's going and your going overnight, I'll ring his mother and ask if she's letting him go mind, they all eventually agreed, so our plan worked a treat.
We all agreed to meet at a certain Bus Stop, so prying eyes couldn't be watching or hear any of us let the cat out the bag. We took the 2nd to last DMU over to Carlisle, it felt good handing over a ticket to Crewe to the gripper(guard), dunno why but 6 15yr old lads sat with huge grins on their faces all the way over Tyne Valley, the talk was of breaking the journey, like a friend and i had done previously but with adults, arrival in Carlisle has us cranning our necks to pick off a couple of loco's on wapping sidings and then to see what was round the back of the Station, result, theres a 26 and an 85, we stayed there picking of the freight trains when 86101 came in, 1st loco of the trip and its the 1st of the 86's, we took it to Preston. Again more freight passed before a member of staff came over and asked where we were off to and asked to look at our tickets, not so long after 87019 arrived, the gripper didnt even come down the train and before we knew it we'd bailed at Wigan, more freight trains were bagged, not all copped but more than our fair share were, Wigan was bloody freezing too and it was starting to get light, undaunted we pressed on, we were all looking forward to Warrington, as much as we were Crewe. next up was 86208. Warrinton was amazing there seemed to electric and deisel loco's in equal abundance, class 20's on coal trains were a novelty to us, we were used to 56's at Tyne Yard. we spent a brillaint couple of hours in Warrington, the time just flew by and all too soon we jumped aboard 86258 to Crewe.
Ever since my first visit, Crewe was my epicentre of trainspotting heaven,my 2nd visit merely confirmed it now, we were trying to pick off as much as we could off Crewe Deisel, whilst trying to watch for everything else going on, the rest of the lads, who were making their 1st visit, were saying, its blinding here, theres more loco's on Crewe Deisel today than a weeks worth at Gateshead, after things calmed down, we decided to purchase some tickets to Chester, 47490 was the 1st Deisel loco we had and after picking up a few merseyrail units, we jumped 47539 back, disappointment rained, the gripper got us, we'd hoped to make at least a couple of moves on those tickets
.
However time flew on and with our notebooks fit to bursting, we decided to head for home, we wearily jumped aboard a train bound for Manchester Pic hauled by 86223, from here we had to get to victoria, so we split up into 3's and jumped in a taxi, after we'd had good butchers round the station first ofcourse, at Victoria we made our way to the platform where we waited for our last bash of the day, 47503 pulled in and took us home to Newcastle, we sat down and reflected on what we had seen and what we had pulled off, our parents all thought we were in Carlisle. one by one we all dropped off to sleep, exhausted but happy, we got home around 10pm. a big dent in our pockets but a helluva bigger dent in the underlines in our Platform 5's.
The fact we got away with it just added to the excitement, it wasn't till years later we confessed at a New Years Eve Party what we'd actually done.
we always planned one trip for the start and one for the end of the school hols. A few of my friends and I we're planning a trip somewhere and seen as the start up one had seen us trip up to Scotland for the day, mainly to scratch off as many of the 47/7's as we could in a day, the plan was to venture South, we tried to convince our parents to let us go overnight to London but were all met with an emphatic, NO!!!
So as we sat at Tyne Yard, whinging about our London jaunt scuppered, awaiting the possibility of seeing a Class 25 or 26 on the Millerhill freight, we were discussing where to go in a couple of weeks time, a friend and I said, Crewe was good, there's Carlisle to take in, plus Warrington, throw some Leccy bashing in too. Then the brains of the group said, comeback via Manchester and hook up with the Liverpool-Newcastle home, yeah thats the trip sorted then.
Thats when it got a bit devious, now we'd been allowed to do an overnighter on Carlisle, due to numbers of us but after the London jaunt had went sour because of the distance, we were dubious wether it may go the same with Crewe, so we'd tell our parents that we'd decided Carlisle's better than nowhere. mainly so we could use the previous overnighter as a bargaining tool, telling our parents, well the last time we went overnight to Carlisle it was fine and we all came back unharmed. So after a 47 rolled in from Millerhill, we set off for home and We all agreed unashamedly, we'd tell our parents we were going to Carlisle but the whole plan was to go to Crewe. The subject had to breached quickly, because we had to make sure we had our rail riders vouchers topped up and savings to raid, not least parents pockets too. My Dad was fine, who's going AND how much will this cost me, I suppose you'll want bait and a new flask too seen as you bust the last one. With parents humming and harring, who's going and your going overnight, I'll ring his mother and ask if she's letting him go mind, they all eventually agreed, so our plan worked a treat.
We all agreed to meet at a certain Bus Stop, so prying eyes couldn't be watching or hear any of us let the cat out the bag. We took the 2nd to last DMU over to Carlisle, it felt good handing over a ticket to Crewe to the gripper(guard), dunno why but 6 15yr old lads sat with huge grins on their faces all the way over Tyne Valley, the talk was of breaking the journey, like a friend and i had done previously but with adults, arrival in Carlisle has us cranning our necks to pick off a couple of loco's on wapping sidings and then to see what was round the back of the Station, result, theres a 26 and an 85, we stayed there picking of the freight trains when 86101 came in, 1st loco of the trip and its the 1st of the 86's, we took it to Preston. Again more freight passed before a member of staff came over and asked where we were off to and asked to look at our tickets, not so long after 87019 arrived, the gripper didnt even come down the train and before we knew it we'd bailed at Wigan, more freight trains were bagged, not all copped but more than our fair share were, Wigan was bloody freezing too and it was starting to get light, undaunted we pressed on, we were all looking forward to Warrington, as much as we were Crewe. next up was 86208. Warrinton was amazing there seemed to electric and deisel loco's in equal abundance, class 20's on coal trains were a novelty to us, we were used to 56's at Tyne Yard. we spent a brillaint couple of hours in Warrington, the time just flew by and all too soon we jumped aboard 86258 to Crewe.
Ever since my first visit, Crewe was my epicentre of trainspotting heaven,my 2nd visit merely confirmed it now, we were trying to pick off as much as we could off Crewe Deisel, whilst trying to watch for everything else going on, the rest of the lads, who were making their 1st visit, were saying, its blinding here, theres more loco's on Crewe Deisel today than a weeks worth at Gateshead, after things calmed down, we decided to purchase some tickets to Chester, 47490 was the 1st Deisel loco we had and after picking up a few merseyrail units, we jumped 47539 back, disappointment rained, the gripper got us, we'd hoped to make at least a couple of moves on those tickets
.However time flew on and with our notebooks fit to bursting, we decided to head for home, we wearily jumped aboard a train bound for Manchester Pic hauled by 86223, from here we had to get to victoria, so we split up into 3's and jumped in a taxi, after we'd had good butchers round the station first ofcourse, at Victoria we made our way to the platform where we waited for our last bash of the day, 47503 pulled in and took us home to Newcastle, we sat down and reflected on what we had seen and what we had pulled off, our parents all thought we were in Carlisle. one by one we all dropped off to sleep, exhausted but happy, we got home around 10pm. a big dent in our pockets but a helluva bigger dent in the underlines in our Platform 5's.
The fact we got away with it just added to the excitement, it wasn't till years later we confessed at a New Years Eve Party what we'd actually done.
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