I was not really interested in trains when I
was younger. I was though (just) old enough to see steam engines in use as a
child as there were still steam trains from our local station at Lyme Regis
till about 1964 when I was four, these were replaced by smelly little diesels
which ran till the line closed on 29th November 1965. (I have one of
the last tickets issued in fact it might be the very last one as it was issued
for 30th November the day after the line closed; it was also signed
by various members of staff!). I remember the friendly driver Tom more than the
trains. My sisters, who were older than me, occasionally used to ride on the
footplate of the locomotive on their way to school in Axminster, though they would
have to slip into a carriage at the intermediate stop at Combpyne to make sure
the station master at Axminster did not see them breaking the rules. I rarely
did more than blow the whistle (All very E.E. Nesbit!)
And here's a photo my mother took of my sisters and me with Tom the engine driver at Lyme Regis station!
This photo is also included at this website:
I have one vivid memory from about 1963/4 of a
massive green steam locomotive thundering past the level crossing gates at
Axminster; it really made the ground rattle and shake. It was possibly something
like the Atlantic Coast Express (ACE), the Southern Region’s flagship express
from Waterloo to Cornwall; it last ran in 1964 and it’s quite possible that my
mother took me/us to watch the last run go past.
This picture of the new steam loco with an excursion version of the “ACE”
at Axminster was taken in 2013. (Note the restoration of the second track
through Axminster that was removed during the Beeching cuts.)
And here's the same train in a video that might give you an idea what it
would have felt like for a small child standing low on the ground by the level crossing
gates just a couple of feet from the track as it raced past.
After the Beeching cuts the number of trains in
the area I lived in decreased dramatically, with almost all the branch lines
closed down and the main line between Salisbury and Exeter reduced to a single
track with passing places. So, my train memories then become more about their
absence in great sections of the West Country so that car journeys invariably involved
driving past out-of-use level-crossings and abandoned stations with grass etc. growing all over the place: Chard, Chard Junction, Seaton Junction, Seaton, Colyford,
Newton Poppleford, Sidmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Bridgwater, Radstock etc. (and
of course, Tiverton where Beeching saw no need to leave any sort of station for quite a large populkation centre othert than "Tivvy" Junction).
As a school boy I was primarily interested in
cars: my vast collection of Matchbox cars was still around for my own children
to play with; I had posters on the wall of the black & gold JPS Formula One
car; I was a fan of car chases in films, and of muscle cars especially the
Dodge Challenger after seeing Vanishing Point with Barry Newman.
Trains were only part of my life as a means of transport when other options were not available, though obviously, the occasional trip to see the sights of London with my mother was made by train. And one of those trips must have been when I was very young as there was still a restaurant car on the train on the journey home and my mother and I actually had dinner on the train. We also went on an excursion trip by train from Axminster to the Farnborough Air Show, though that was remembered because of the planes rather than trains (also remembered because of the very long walk between the station and show ground!)
I twice travelled home by train from boarding school in Gloucestershire, when my mother was unable to pick me up by car, and that was hardly the simplest of journeys. The only part I remember was that, as there was no station near the school in the Cotswolds, the first part of the journey as far as Bristol was by taxi: shared with another boy! I assume that I then went down to Exeter and caught another train from there to Axminster.
Trains were also a means by which relatives might come to visit us. My father’s sister Audrey who lived in Paignton, occasionally came up by train, though her old diaries indicate that she was often driven home by car, or driven as far as Exeter. My mother’s sister Cis who lived in Plymouth also came up a couple of times. When my eldest sister got married in 1978 my father’s cousin Margaret who he had never met, and who was seventy-five by then, made the journey down from Merseyside to Dorset, though it was not as complicated as it might have been, as I think she was able to catch a through train from Liverpool to Exeter, and may even have been met at Exeter by car.
Trains were only part of my life as a means of transport when other options were not available, though obviously, the occasional trip to see the sights of London with my mother was made by train. And one of those trips must have been when I was very young as there was still a restaurant car on the train on the journey home and my mother and I actually had dinner on the train. We also went on an excursion trip by train from Axminster to the Farnborough Air Show, though that was remembered because of the planes rather than trains (also remembered because of the very long walk between the station and show ground!)
I twice travelled home by train from boarding school in Gloucestershire, when my mother was unable to pick me up by car, and that was hardly the simplest of journeys. The only part I remember was that, as there was no station near the school in the Cotswolds, the first part of the journey as far as Bristol was by taxi: shared with another boy! I assume that I then went down to Exeter and caught another train from there to Axminster.
Trains were also a means by which relatives might come to visit us. My father’s sister Audrey who lived in Paignton, occasionally came up by train, though her old diaries indicate that she was often driven home by car, or driven as far as Exeter. My mother’s sister Cis who lived in Plymouth also came up a couple of times. When my eldest sister got married in 1978 my father’s cousin Margaret who he had never met, and who was seventy-five by then, made the journey down from Merseyside to Dorset, though it was not as complicated as it might have been, as I think she was able to catch a through train from Liverpool to Exeter, and may even have been met at Exeter by car.
When I went on an “expedition” to Ireland in 1976 I had to travel from Bridgwater to Windermere by train and all I recall of that journey was not having anything to eat or drink for hours, and having to stand all the way from Birmingham to Oxenholme. On the return journey, I travelled back via Liverpool Lime Street where I arrived very early on a Sunday morning and slept in the station concourse for an hour or so before there was a suitable train to catch.
I went on a couple of sixth-form school trips
by train from Tiverton Junction (as was) to London, but I had no interest in
what the train was or where it went. One only noticed the view out of the
window at Slough if attempting to see the Mars Bar factory.
Before going to university I went to see a girlfriend in
the Netherlands and I travelled by train and the Sheerness-Vlissingen ferry,
but had no real idea where the trains were taking me in either country, all
that mattered was to change at Sittingbourne and Rotterdam. From a train window,
the Netherlands seemed particularly dull and Rotterdam station perhaps the
dullest place of all as this photo I took shows.
And a nice negative railway memory from that Dutch trip was someone trying to sell us heroin in the station restaurant in Meppel.
One last observation about the older trains was
the fact that I liked that they had corridors. Once in your compartment you were
thus not disturbed by people walking up the middle of the train; on the other
hand, as a very little boy, I used to love spending the journey not sitting
still, but walking back and forth along the length of the train.
No comments:
Post a Comment