Main Line Steam Trains

[Maydup]

Yesterday marked 50 years since the last main line steam train in the UK.

What are your memories of travelling under steam on the main lines?
I remember doing on holiday on the train to the west country and it feeling very luxurious with individual compartments and net luggage racks overhead.

[Maydup]

http://www.itv.com/news/2018-08-11/end-of-steam-trains-remembered-50-years-on/

[Hopkirk]

I remember standing on Wadley's Bridge (pedestrian only) as one went underneath with clouds of steam.

Mind you, I have a feeling it may have been the Flying Scotsman on a special.

[pastafreak]

This made me Google steam trains on the Long Island Rail Road, when I was growing up. My father's best mate was a train driver/engineer, so one day we drove out to the end of the line and I got to see an engine up close. It was a behemoth!
Thinking back...and listening to this film...I certainly must have rode on them a number of times. I just love the sound of them...the whistles, the sound on the tracks.
I found this...it really gets going about 8-10 minutes in...if anyone is interested.

https://youtu.be/jDu9JQQw858

[Maydup]

Good film Pasta, and great memories. I love how there was no crossing barrier and just a guard to see that great big steam train across the road!

[Maydup]

At about 18.05 in the film.

[anotheoldgit]

The piece of grit one sometime got in the eye after poking one's head out of the window.

[rowanwitch]

The smell, the noise and the luxury of eating brekkie in a Pullman car..... grew up near Clapham Junction saw loads and loved travelling on them.

[Baldric]

Soot, soot and more soot, disgustingly filthy things.

[hereIam]

I remember as a child, me and my friends standing on a local railway bridge as the steam trains went past enveloping us all in steam and waving at the driver as he waved back. My lovely Granddad used to be a steam train driver. Happy memories.

[pastafreak]

One thing that amazed me in my link, was how very, very close to the tracks some people stood...or even sat in one part.

[goodgoalie]

Lots of long journeys from Glasgow Central and St Enoch's (anyone remember that?) down to the south coast of England every summer, stopping off with relatives on the way back. I remember my Dad teaching me how to work out the speed of the train using my new watch and the yellow trackside quarter-mile and mile markers.

The smell of the carriages will always stay with me, and I can still picture the little green oblongs of soap in the toilets. And the lightbulbs in the compartments had a three-prong bayonet fitting so there was no point nicking them!

[paddywak]

As kids we often used to go to a pub which was built next to the East Coast main line and in the summer it was packed with people come to watch the trains. It was situated on a very long straight with a water trough between the tracks so the engine tender could be topped up at full speed, which was quite a sight.At the end of the pub car park was a level crossing (manned in those days) and as soon as the train went by all of us kids would run and hang onto the gate so the poor old boy would have to wind the gates open with as many as twenty of us young'ns getting a ride.

[Canary42]

Daily trip to and from school for 7 years (Sept '53 to July '60).

[Maydup]

Fabulous stories and some lovely memories of sound and smells.

Our local line still has manned level crossings with gates, although sadly, soon to be replaced with barriers. Nevertheless, the gatekeepers wouldn't let you near them let alone ride on them!