My interest in the railways stems from growing up in a house overlooking the Durham Coast line in Sunderland. From an early age I could observe the day to day operations of the varied Regional Railways Pacer and Sprinter fleet that traversed the route, and gaze in awe at the grubby, grumbling Trainload Coal liveried class 56s that made the doors rattle and the floor shake as they rolled past at the head of long strings of HAA coal hoppers bound to and from the likes of Wearmouth Colliery, Wardley opencast and Tyne Dock, amongst others no doubt.
Slightly later on, my Gran or sometimes my Mam would take me through to Newcastle to watch the trains for a couple of hours at what seemed like a distant railway mecca to a young, burgeoning enthusiast, sitting on the seats at the west end of platform 2 where I remember watching still nearly new class 91s buzz past, almost spotless swallow livery glinting in the sun. The Intercity 125 and 225 trains, travelling to far flung and exotic destinations, seemed so glamorous compared to the regular staple of work stained Pacers and Sprinters which worked my local line.
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Quite eerie in some ways reading your post as it mirrors what an old acquaintance of mine from Sunderland told me a decade back - only he was talking about 1959-60 time, and how he first went to the great city of Newcastle past Gateshead sheds and saw ...... a STREAK for the first time!
But Sunderland was (relatively) more glamorous in those days in terms of the gap vis-a-vis Newcastle - it actually got A3s on at least one daily passenger. A lunchtime to Leeds, IIRC.
There must be something about Monkwearmouth too, because I think it was there that he first got the railway bug. He told me he remembers seeing a named B1 (it might have been Kudu - but can't remember myself for sure) come across one Saturday morning and how a friend had told him he could find the engine in an Ian Allan book - so he duly found the book in a newsagents and found his named B1.
As for many of us, this incident changed his life.
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My earliest memory of trains is this - Parents were apple picking at Rhoden Farm, Paddock Wood. This puts me on the north side of the SEML and east of the junction with the Medway Valley Line. I think it was 1966, possibly 1965 but definitely not 1967. Apple picking means late August to mid October. I remember the dark green EMUs passing by, but I also remember at least one passenger train hauled by a steam engine.
Can anyone confirm that this could have been the case? AFAIK, regular steam ended in 1961 in that area of Kent.
I think steam lingered on at Tonbridge for some months after electrification (fully operational from June 16, I think it was) and Tonbridge continued to service steam visitors for some time after it lost its allocation. It is possible you saw a working from Redhill or, possibly, Guildford in 1965, I'd guess. I'd have thought 1966 would have been too late, but not impossible. Chances are it would have been an N, U, Q1 or standard.
My earliest memories are from a few miles on towards Dover, from fields near Headcorn. The one strongest image is not of a train, but of the lineside grass burning from bits of coal exhausted by passing steam!
THE crack train of the day was the Golden Arrow - I have vague memories of seeing it on an embankment, but of course, it could also be me merging photos seen later with fiction.
The idea of actually
travelling on the GA never entered my head - that seemed as realistic as space travel in the 50s - but 15 years later I would be on it - although by then it was no longer glamorous Pullmans, of course.
I also remember one sunny afternoon my brother taking me to the railway by an overbridge. I suspect it was summer 1957. Again, I'm sure we saw King Arthurs and Schools nd stuff, but the thing in my memory was the pond nearby the line - it seemed to be a perfect circle, and my brother said it was a bomb crater. (I think he used to try to impress me that he knew about the war
)
Of course, it possibly was. Many (10?) years later, I went back to the bridge - and the pond was still there, but no longer such a perfect circle!
