What kindled your interest in railways?

jules · Post by **jules** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 12:58 pm

I have a feeling that scrapped loco convoys were barred from using the Severn Tunnel hence the 'long way round' via Yate, Gloucester South Jcn and Lydney Jcn to Cashmore's and Barry.

Now you say it, I also remember reading about a Severn Tunnel ban too, so you are probably absolutely right. I hadn't thought of that until you mentioned it.

the green mile · Post by **the green mile** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 10:58 am

Nothing kindled my lifelong interest in railways. It was in my genes.
My brain was pre-disposed towards orderly things like parallel rails, symmetrical motion and groupings of numbers. Born to be a spotter

Ian L Jamieson · Post by **Ian L Jamieson** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 11:17 am

Very succinctly put, green mile. And that is exactly the reason that I have a predisposition towards railways - I just haven't recognised it until you put it into words for me.

the green mile · Post by **the green mile** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:01 pm

I've done something right today then. (Her indoors please note).

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 9:19 am

the green mile wrote: My brain was pre-disposed towards orderly things like parallel rails, symmetrical motion and groupings of numbers....

...and the regular chuffing of a steam loco, the rhythm of carriage wheels over rail joints, etc - sounds which if one lived by a railway from a very early age one would have been exposed to subliminally even during sleep.

the green mile · Post by **the green mile** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:10 am

Ah yes! I forgot about those. All part of the audio-visual mind conditioning. Even today, the clickety-clack of wheels on rail joints passing through a complex track layout warms the cockles of the heart. Something sadly missing on continuously welded track.

Ian L Jamieson · Post by **Ian L Jamieson** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:10 am

You are right, of course. And, as I said in an earlier post, having been born into the world right next to a railway, must have had something to do with it, mustn't it?

jules · Post by **jules** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:30 pm

I first took an interest in 67/68 and seem to recall it was the "Summer of Love", albeit I was far to young to get involved. The air seemed to be full of music both from the radio ans the passing Maybach powered diesels. Whiter Shade of Pale springs to mind.

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:48 pm

jules wrote:Whiter Shade of Pale springs to mind.

Now that was in the charts in the spring and early summer of 1967, and for me is always linked to the last few months of steam on the Waterloo - Weymouth line.

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 12:24 am

Robin Summerhill wrote:
jules wrote:Whiter Shade of Pale springs to mind.
Now that was in the charts in the spring and early summer of 1967, and for me is always linked to the last few months of steam on the Waterloo - Weymouth line.

...should have been 'Waterloo Sunset'!
For me 'Summer in the City' (Lovin' Spoonful) will always remind me of long hot days of August 1966 next to the WCML at Acton Bridge - loads of steam and EE Type 4s! Plus 'Concrete and Clay' (Unit 4 + 2) Spring 1965 at Charfield/ Bristol. Can't songs be so evocative?

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 12:50 am

buxton4472 wrote:
Robin Summerhill wrote:
jules wrote:Whiter Shade of Pale springs to mind.
Now that was in the charts in the spring and early summer of 1967, and for me is always linked to the last few months of steam on the Waterloo - Weymouth line.
...should have been 'Waterloo Sunset'!
For me 'Summer in the City' (Lovin' Spoonful) will always remind me of long hot days of August 1966 next to the WCML at Acton Bridge - loads of steam and EE Type 4s! Plus 'Concrete and Clay' (Unit 4 + 2) Spring 1965 at Charfield/ Bristol. Can't songs be so evocative?

We're probably leaving the topic well behind, but .....

"Waterloo Sunset" also reminds me of the end steam on the Southern, and I'm not the only one reminded of it (I found this some years ago) :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLtgF3wt-Ss

There's also this:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v78zOnbg ... re=related

As regards "Summer in the City," that song always reminds me of the LNW line between Carnforth and Carlisle, especially (for some reason) Brittanias going up Shap.

Apologies to all our younger readers for all this, but "what kindled your interest in railways" appears to have turned into "what music do you relate to your railway reminiscences" as well!

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 11:24 am

Robin Summerhill wrote:
buxton4472 wrote:
Robin Summerhill wrote: Apologies to all our younger readers for all this, but "what kindled your interest in railways" appears to have turned into "what music do you relate to your railway reminiscences" as well!
OK - I apologise for and promise this will be the last deviation from topic from me. We've had mentioned sights and sounds evoking or stimulating rail interest, but then there were the smells. The obvious one is steam loco exhaust but saturated steam itself has a smell all its own. Then there were the ones associated with my boyhood at Charfield - the stopping trains' ex-LMS 'brake seconds' with the pervading smell of fish in the guard's compartment, creosote oozing from wooden sleepers on hot summer days, traces of paraffin on everything (station was lit by Tilley lamps), the warm woody smell from pigeon baskets waiting for their prize racers to be released, machine-oil vapours wafting from Lister & Co's packing cases awaiting dispatch from the parcels office, but most evocative were the smells of the signal box - cotton waste, Brasso, warm brown linoleum, sulphur fumes from the coal stove, carbolic (BR-issue square chunks of cream coloured soap), also BR-issue scouring powder (needed to get the tea stains off the cracked cups!) and the pungent aroma of the tea itself - a strong, spoon-dissolving liquor from a battered aluminium tea-pot with a bakelite knob on the ill-fitting lid. Right, I've finished! Thank you for your patience.

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 7:10 pm

buxton4472 wrote:
Robin Summerhill wrote: Apologies to all our younger readers for all this, but "what kindled your interest in railways" appears to have turned into "what music do you relate to your railway reminiscences" as well!
OK - I apologise for and promise this will be the last deviation from topic from me.

I doubt that Pete will mind too much if we stray off topic and, as the thread's originator, I certainly don't!

And in any case, I think you've hit on an interesting sub-topic here, because people's memories will link things to other things, and it is clear that its not just me that sometimes links railways and music!

For example, whenever I hear the Dave Brubeck quartet playing "Take Five" I have visions of a "Hall" with a Bristol to Portsmouth train passing the dry docks at Southampton near Millbrook where, once upon a time, from time to time you could see the Queen Mary in for repairs.

As the two things are not actually linked at all in any obvious way, I can only surmise that I must have heard it one morning on the radio at home before I was on just such a train later in the day!

the green mile · Post by **the green mile** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 10:44 am

Buxton, that's the most evocative description of railways I've read for many a year. That dimension of smell is the one thing which modern railways are devoid of. You get somewhere near it on a heritage line.

AndyK · Post by **AndyK** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 3:27 pm

the green mile wrote:That dimension of smell is the one thing which modern railways are devoid of.

Except when you are near the toilet on a Voyager.