When was your first railway journey?

[JDi]

How old were you and where were you travelling to? Also, when was your first railway journey alone?

 

[mrcheek]

1980. 6 years old. Family trip from Weston-super-Mare to Aberystwyth on a Merrymaker special!

Not sure on my first alone. Probably just Weston to Bristol aged 15 or 16

 

[yorkie]

How old were you and where were you travelling to?

I know my first long distance journey (on an HST) was aged 2½ but unsurprisingly I can't remember it.

Also, when was your first railway journey alone?

In Year 6 (age 11).

 

[Ash Bridge]

I already mentioned recently on a similar thread that my first rail journey was likely to have been Stockport to Macclesfield on a class 104 DMU. First time alone (well with a friend of the same age ) would have been from Reddish South to Stockport aged 11 or 12.

 

[FQ]

My first journey was 87022 from Milton Keynes to Euston on 1A39 10:19 WVS-EUS at 28 days old.

My first trip alone was at age 12 (a bit of time out bashing Chiltern stuff: Leamington-Warwick Parkway-Bicester-Leamington-Bicester-Leamington if I remember correctly).

 

[30907]

Try this one: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/your-very-first-rail-journey-with-parents.92183/

First journey alone Shortlands to Beckenham Jn when there was a bus strike.
I did it daily in 3rd and 4th year juniors, y5-6 to younger readers.

 

[AJM580]

From memory it would have been a unit from Norwich to Yarmouth round about 1970
First trip without parents was 31253 Norwich - March in 1982 with a mate from school

 

[Bevan Price]

No idea, but probably when taken on holiday to Cleveleys via Blackpool when very young.

 

[PeterC]

I have family photos with me in my pram at my nan's. That was in Romford, we were renting a bungalow in Stanmore and neither of my parents drove then so I imagine it was then.

 

[Bill EWS]

My first train journey was when I was about 12-13. It was a BB's outing from Aberdeen to Ellon. The first time I had travelled on my own toom and found it a bit scary. This would have been around 1952/3. I remember the wooden coaches with no corridors and the sound of the locomotive struggling up the Denburn Valley towards Kittybrewster. Then getting off at Ellon station and the group being walked to the local park (Gordon Park) from the station by a group leader. We had a great time at the park with numerous side shows and games.

 

[Muzer]

I was born in Denmark, in the suburbs of Copenhagen. Depending on how you define "railway journey" it would therefore very likely have been a trip on the S Train.

(Funnily enough the S probably stands for the Danish word for "station". When the lines were turned into this commuter network, they used an "S" as a prominent sign of where the stations were. The public didn't really know what the "S" stood for, just that it showed where the trains were, so when a newspaper launched a competition to formally name the network, "S-tog" ("S train") won.)

 

[Hornet]

Can't remember my first ever journey, but I well remember my first solo journey. It was from Burnham to Paddington when I was 6. It was to pick up my Nan who lived just around the corner from Paddington Station. By the age of 10 I was travelling alone to London during the School Holidays, mainly for Train Spotting and visiting the Science Museum. At 11 I ended up on my own in Swanage after a Merrymaker Rail/Coach Day Trip to the Dorset Coast. 13 saw me heading alone to Aberystwyth on a Day Tour to the Vale of Rheidol Railway. Always got home in one piece, and no-one batted an eyelid. You could do those sorts of things in the 60's and 70's, but not today sadly.

 

[pdq]

Probably not my first ever journey, but the earliest one I specifically remember would around 1983 when I was in 3rd year of junior school (year 5 these days). My class went en masse from Tenby to Pembroke on the train, to go to a gypsy wagon museum I think.

When it came to go home, it absolutely poured with rain, and I can remember that the guard allowed us to get on at Pembroke on the way to Pembroke Dock before then going back to Tenby. I can also remember that we were allowed in the cab a few at a time with the driver, and he let some of us (not me ) to sound the horn.
So much of that day out couldn't happen now...