What got you into railways?

[Lner fan Sam]

So, what was that fateful event in your life that sparked your interest in railways?

For me it was...(don't laugh) a day out with Thomas at the nymr in the year 2000.

[Catweasel]

I blame my late dad. Got me a Triang Jinty goods set for Christmas. I think that was 19**. Then seeing prototype Deltic at Norwich Thorpe around 1955? Dad took me to that as well. Had relatives living in a crossing house near Kings Lynn, fair made the place shake when the trains belted through. I can still hear the bell to shut the gates!

[Andrew]

I blame my late dad.

Me too. My dad was an enthusiast and modeller and so I guess it was just in the blood. We visited preserved lines and had the full range of Thomas books - I quickly became obsessed. At about the age of 4 my railway interest waned briefly as I developed my Brittains farm (I remember Dad's unlined black ex GER tank engines seeming a little plain compared to my bright green John Deere tractor) but was revived very quickly whilst putting on my plimsolls one morning - he'd left a Hornby dock shunter in one shoe... Quite why he chose that particular method to introduce me to railway modelling I don't know, but it worked...

He was also responsible for my conversion to the ways of the narrow gauge. Walking along one morning (I was probably about 7), chatting about trains, I think he must have realised that I didn't really appreciate just how big full size trains were. I remember him demonstrating the size of a Pacific's driving wheel, holding his hand up against the side of a house - I was horrified! I think we probably returned home and looked at comforting pictures of Skarloey, Rheneas and co, and my interest in the narrow gauge was born. I sometimes wonder whether I ought to go back and affix a blue plaque to the side of that house...

The railway gene seems not to have passed onto my kids - well not yet anyway, maybe they're late developers... My son is 7, and I'm keen to get the railway into a state we can play with together
before it's too late...

Cheers,

Andrew

[RuneK]

Been working on the railroads.

[Catweasel]

As for narrow gauge, I fancied a layout at home. This was back in the seventies. I saw some 009 layouts at various exhibitions and that was that. However,I soon became fed up with unreliable N gauge gubbins so I moved into building my own split frame chassis. Then I found Brian Clarke And that was it. Building my own track with Code 40 FB rail to 8 mm gauge. Totally insane. Then I got some 16 mm stuff from Brian and soon sold the mice. Much better. Smaller engines and more room to work with. Then a rest for a while and came back into the fold early last year after a spell with radio control cars and monster trucks. Better go now, I've got a Saltford Ruston to rebuild. I'm having fun.

[IrishPeter]

Childhood train set and the Rev. Mr. Awdry got me started in standard gauge. Not quite sure why the parents chose a GWR train set unless I was keen on 'Duck.'

2' gauge Narrow Gauge was over the back wall at the local tileyard, but as I was not a diesel enthusiast as a small child the thump-thump-thump of a resting Ruston was not that interesting at the time. There also another 2' gauge line on the other side of the Haven serving the other local tileyard which may have had a Simplex or a Lister Railmotor, and aspired to an open level crossing on a minor road in the Ings.

My first narrow gauge train ride was between Ballasalla and Port Erin in 1976 when it was still under the ownership of the original Isle of Man Railway Co.! The locomotive was No.4 'Loch.' I was over joyed the next year when the line reopened into Douglas. Then somewhere about 1978 I got to ride on the original Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway.

First got interested in 16mm scale in the mid-1980s; finally got to build a 16mm scale line twenty years later!

Peter in AZ

[williamfj]

Thomas the Tank Engine has a lot to answer for! Our family holidays would consist of either traction engine rallies or the Isle of Man. I can remember having a lump of soot from IMR No.12 Hutchinson getting lodged between my eye and eyelid when I was about 12, she left an impression! The first steam engine I ever 'cabbed' though was a Fowler road loco (doesn't get much better than that) when I was a nipper.
Trips to the NYMR certainly helped and has possibly had an influence on the loadings Minnie had to endure last year. The holidays to the IoM planted an interest in narrow gauge and I suppose the fact that Fowler and Ruston & Hornsby made both traction engines and narrow gauge locos also helped.
If I'm honest I seem to be losing interest in 1:1 railways, oddly my interest in 16mm endeavours and traction engines seems to be more or less the same.

[hussra]

So many things! My earliest memory is of Hornby O gauge tinplate on the patio on a sunny summer afternoon... Grandfather was a keen member of the Irish Railway Record Society... he built us a set of buffer stops in his garden (wood and old bed springs!) for us to use when pretending to be trains on the garden paths... many a childhood visit to the old Belfast Transport Museum at Witham Street (now that was a proper museum!)... a footplate ride at the Shane's Castle Railway aged 3 kind of sealed my fate...

[Matt]

For me, a combination of a family holiday to wales, which involved riding on several 2 foot gauge lines, thomas the tank engine, and my parents buying me and my brother a load of brio.

[laalratty]

Been in to railways as long as I can remember, according to my parents right back to when I was a 1 year old or younger! Both my parents were volunteers on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, we lived next to a railway line so really I think it was inevertable. Had my first footplate ride on the la'al ratty aged 2 1/2 on Northern Rock (probably explaning why that loco was and always will be to my eyes the best in the world!) Holidays to North Wales and regular visits to Ravenglass are probably what ensured my main interest being in Narrow Gauge lines, Standard gauge can be nice but a main line loco on a branch or secondary line hauling some mark 1's dosn't really do it for me. The garden railway interest came along later, a lot later, it wasn't until 2005 when construction of the ANLR started.

[Mrs F Controller]

Me too my dad who managed to accumulate a large TT layout whilst we lived in Africa! It had to be small so it lived under the bed and he just pulled it out when we played with it! Then later actual garden railways was one hungover New Years Day spent with John Barber and the Reydon Model Engineering Club in Suffolk! After many goes on the various scales and locos we purchased a mamod starter set!

[Spule 4]

Granddad liked trains, even took some 16mm movies of them and photographs back in the day.

Dad bit the bug and had an H0/H0n3 railway.

For me? Always liked narrow gauge for some strange reason and I blame Richard Scarry for my interest in European railways and cars.

The first train was a wooden trainset that came with a little painted wooden village from East Germany. So maybe the leaded paint may have been a factor as well!!

[Enginehouse]

Bath Road engine shed 1960. Pendennis Castle up line towards main. A very nice grey haired gentleman dropped his hand on my shoulder and said "let's take her out lad. Unfortunately just a short relief trip up to Temple Meads station long siding where the regular fireman took over. I walked back in the rain but that walk decided my future. I spent almost all of my working life with various steam generation and high pressure hot water plant. Locomotives were just the trigger. I don't run small steam powered models though and probably never will.

[laurence703]

I think it bit when I were a wee baby... I had a trainset... Then Thomas the tank engine... And my dad had a 00 gauge layout which he had under the bed. It had three GWR locos and the rest were a mixture. I still have the locos and wagons. From there I moved to North Wales and became a very active volunteer on the Rhyl Miniature Railway. I drove my first ever steam loco at the age of Thirteen, under supervision of course and from there I grew with the railway. At the age of sixteen I passed out as a driver and spent my 16th birthday driving my all time favourite steam loco No.44 Cagney... A move to Milton Keynes for an apprenticeship in Wolverton works has put a long distance gap between me and Rhyl but I still go up to play trains a few times a year. Joined a M.E.S in Northampton and completed a 3.5" Juliet which drove me round the bend and up the wall so I sold that and bought a MSS loco and some track... That Mss loco is now Ofario.

[Dwayne]

When my parents immigrated to Canada from Holland, my dad brought over his collection of Marklin HO trains. My two oldest brothers built a layout in the basement that I was enamored with at the age of four.

Dabbled with trains off and on through my teen years. Marriage, work and other hobbies kept me away during early adulthood. Started playing with them again several years ago, but it wasn't until last year with the purchase of the house that I've gotten back into them enough to start putting track down on tera firma.

[DolwyddelanLightRail]

Now, where does the list start...

With parents from BR backgrounds and with my Grandfather also into railways from the Second War, it was all set up for me really! Heck, I was travelling on my first HST to North Wales from 4 days old (Which I also happen to be typing this on....not to North Wales though....). With the constant travelling around the country begun to set in well, travelling from Essex to North Wales and being taken to the front of the train at Euston to have a look around the cab (which comprised of 86/87s and HSTs) and also going to Reading a lot...going up the escalator at Paddington to find 4-5 HST sets at the blocks there always used to take me by awe (well, I was under 5 at the time). Holidays over to York always used to end up with a trip up North. Also added in was that my Grandfather always used to take me to Colwyn Bay to watch the trains whilst my Gran went shopping...(anyone for a 37 loco haul?) Being taken to a lot of preserved railways and also as most people have mentioned, Thomas and Brio was also thrown in for good luck, which I guess none of it has worn off by my usual activities that I get up to these days, such as my current travels around the UK, which I do happen to get around a *bit*, Helping out on the Prototype HST to get it back working once more etc

[Pretoria]

Now, where does the list start...

So where do the fire engines and arsonist tendencies come from ?

[TommyDodd]

Well, there's family background on both sides. One grandad was born in a crossing lodge (Scothern, on the GCR Market Rasen line) where his Mum was keeper and Dad was ganger for the section- he never worked for the railway officially but one of his household chores was filling and trimming the paraffin gate lamps. My other grandad came back from the war to marry a Scots lass and take a job on the LNER firing over the Waverley route- but the winter of 1947 convinced him to head back home to Wolverhampton where he spent the rest of his working life. My Dad was a signalman before me, and uncle Alec a guard. I even married into a railway family, since Rebecca's grandad was a "watchman" (that's crossing-keeper to you and me) on the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad.
As for what got me into it, no idea. I can honestly not remember a time when I wasn't into trains. "Thomas" books (no tv series back then), models, days out by train (ah, the joy of staff travel facilities), finagling my parents into a holiday in Wales in '79 and my first encounter with the "real" narrow gauge. If I really had to pick a single encounter, it would be Summer holidays 1978. We went to Scarborough for a week by train including a trip on the Humber ferry, BR's last paddle-steamer (as good starts go it doesn't get much better). One day we had a spin on the North Bay Railway (at 20" the bigger end of the miniature spectrum). l I didn't see the engine uncoupled as we were buying tickets- it just disappeared from view, only to appear magically* a few minutes later from behind a wooden building and couple on. As we pulled out, I looked down the track from which she'd appeared but couldn't see where it went- a moment that left me with a desire to see what's just around the corner, a desire that never went away.
I suppose the final leap into full-fledged gricerdom was the Summer of 81' and the infectious near-hysteria of the last days of the magnificent Deltics. Two years later I found a magazine from that summer in the school library's storeroom, the August Railway Modeller, in which I read the article "The Princetown Branch" and discovered the wonderful worlds of 16mm, live steam and garden railways. Normality wouldn't have been half as much fun.

*Peasholm is a one-platform station and there is no turntable. Instead, when the engine clears the bottom points and reverses it disappears behind a hedge and runs past and round the engine shed (the wooden building), so the run-round loop doubles up as a return loop-very elegant.

[MDLR]

I got taken to Dawlish Warren for a holiday when i was 9 or 10........... spent most of my holiday sitting on the sea wall with an ABC Western Region book.......................

[90733]

Thomas the tank engine.... and my bedroom window overlooking the Keighley and worth valley railway on keighley station approch, which reuslted in me running to the window eerytime i heard a train!