Confessions of an Enthusiast

[Calthrop]

Having read about the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway in (I think) The Wonder Book of Railways I assumed it ran between those three places, so when at the age of 10 I visited there with my father we went to New Romney and had a ride to Hythe and back. It was only later when looking at the guide book I'd purchased that I found we'd only travelled over about half of the line.

Initially I thought for a moment, that you were going to tell of experiencing geographical confusion because the three places in the railway's title are not in the correct sequence of where they're located / served by the trains ! One gathers that the reason for this being so, is that "Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch" sounds better, and has a more catchy rhythm to it, than the names in actual as-per-map order, in either direction.

I trust that at a later time, you've revisited the line and travelled over the Dungeness extension -- with its, in several ways, very different character from the more northerly part of the line.

The Wonder Book of Railways again, I think it was, that had a photo of the A4 'Sir Ralph Wedgwood' damaged beyond repair during bombing in World War ll.

I saw that picture as a kid, too -- made me feel awfully sad.

 

[Blinkbonny]

As a small child (younger than 10) I would put my ear to the floor and claim I could clearly hear Eurostar passing underneath our house. The fact we lived in a small town in rural Shropshire didn't seem an issue to me.

This post reminds me that as a boy we used to visit my grandparents who lived in Great Ayton on the Whitby line - though the station used to seem an impossibly long way from the village to me.

My uncle used to take us to pick wild raspberries on the line-side down an Embankment - a dangerous enough task in itself, but hey you had to go where the raspberries were!

But I remember on one occasion - having seen something similar on the Lone Ranger - laying my head on the line with my ear to the track and claiming I could hear when a train was coming from several miles away!

Thankfully the service was as infrequent then as it is now. But hey-ho, health and safety gone mad, never did me any harm etc etc...

 

[Trackman]

As a kid I always thought class 40s were Deltics as they had a 'D' prefix. (I had a book about trains and it looked a bit like a Deltic)
Here's a funny one, at Euxton junction I thought it was the start of the Blackpool tramway (near enough just as it had been electrified).
Decades later, I was on the train to Preston and a kid says to his Dad the same thing!

 

[krus_aragon]

I've just remembered another one.

As a youngster, I noted that most trains from Bangor had the destination of Crewe (Or maybe London, or Manchester.) Clearly, Crewe was an vast, important railway destination, equal to these big cities, but I couldn't find it on a regular map or road atlas. This grew into a standing joke among my friends, that Crewe was some sort of ethereal destination that could only be reached by train.

Oh, and also the maxim: "All roads lead to Rome, but all rails lead to Crewe"!

 

[EveningStar]

As a kid I always thought class 40s were Deltics as they had a 'D' prefix. (I had a book about trains and it looked a bit like a Deltic)

Thank you for this ... I do not feel so bad for calling a Deltic the Hornby class 37 I received as a, single digit I stress, birthday present.

 

[gdale1]

Always remember the shock of seeing a Western along with GWR stock at Birmingham Snow Hill when staying with an Auntie in Brum. I had only seen them during our annual holiday in Devon and Cornwall and couldn't understand how they were so far north.

 

[Cowley]

When I was a kid in the 1970s I remember being unhappy that the big blue engine at the Severn Valley Railway called ‘Gordon’ was a 2-10-0 freight locomotive and clearly not the ‘A3’ style express 4-6-2 machine that it should have been...

 

[Grumpy Git]

When I was a kid in the 1970s I remember being unhappy that the big blue engine at the Severn Valley Railway called ‘Gordon’ was a 2-10-0 freight locomotive and clearly not the ‘A3’ style express 4-6-2 machine that it should have been...

I remember seeing that blue 9F at Bewdley about 1984?

I also could never fathom why as a five year old I never saw a train on the Buxton to Ashbourne line, (despite the rails having been lifted)!

 

[Cowley]

I remember seeing that blue 9F at Bewdley about 1984?

Yes it was a regular performer on the line in those days (it was actually a Riddles War Department design rather than a 9F).
When I used to volunteer on the Mid Hants we had our own one also in Longmoor Military Railway* blue - 601 ‘Sturdee’. Eventually I understood the link with the LMR at Bordon, but it definitely confused me back then.

(* ‘LMR’ confused me too, a bit like ‘LMS’ but different.
There was no Google to quickly look things up back then of course...)

 

[Calthrop]

When I was a kid in the 1970s I remember being unhappy that the big blue engine at the Severn Valley Railway called ‘Gordon’ was a 2-10-0 freight locomotive and clearly not the ‘A3’ style express 4-6-2 machine that it should have been...

What with potential first name / surname mixing-up: General Charles Gordon, the 19th-century hero of China and the Sudan, has long had a tendency to confuse the very young. I understand that when the Sudan was under British rule; there stood near the centre of Khartoum, a statue of the great man seated in the saddle of a camel. It is recounted that the son of a British administrator in Khartoum was, from infancy, shown by his parents this statue, and told who it commemorated, in a very reverent fashion. Finally the lad, aged about four, asked plaintively: "Please, who is that man who's sitting on poor Gordon?"

 

[Stuwhu]

Dont think I've seen that film. Is Robin Asquith in it?

 

[Cowley]

What with potential first name / surname mixing-up: General Charles Gordon, the 19th-century hero of China and the Sudan, has long had a tendency to confuse the very young. I understand that when the Sudan was under British rule; there stood near the centre of Khartoum, a statue of the great man seated in the saddle of a camel. It is recounted that the son of a British administrator in Khartoum was, from infancy, shown by his parents this statue, and told who it commemorated, in a very reverent fashion. Finally the lad, aged about four, asked plaintively: "Please, who is that man who's sitting on poor Gordon?"

That’s a good name for a camel actually...

 

[Calthrop]

Whereas if I were ever to own a llama, I think I'd call him Salvador: llama -- Dalai Lama -- Salvador Dali...

 

[xotGD]

I get General Gordon and Flash Gordon, but who was Gordon Highlander and what did he do?

 

[alexl92]

I remember visiting the Embsay railway as a kid on a day out with Thomas day. Thomas and Percy were running but some locos in the sidings at Embsay also had faces on. I must have only been small but seeing a dark blue/black saddle tank in a siding just down from the platform with a face, I decided that as none of the 'main' Thomas characters had saddle tanks, this engine must have been Sir Handel... and was aghast when I heard a parent next to me telling their child it might be Oliver (' But Oliver doesn't have a saddle tank!' I thought, indignantly)

For all my evident nerdiness at that age, it never occurred to me that Sir Handel was narrow gauge engine so wouldn't be seen running on a standard-gauge line.

 

[RyanOPlasty]

I used to think that Surbiton was a fictitious place with a suburban railway station made up by the BBC