Jump to content

how my interest in trains grew ( I think )


Baimor
 Share

Recommended Posts

Although I don't really recall much about how my interest in trains developed ( I'm the only 1 in my family that's interested ) my mum's maiden name was Bray. Her uncle Tom ( my grandads brother ) was a fireman on a pretty well known ( record breaking in fact!!) engine in the thirty and fourtys. My dad never showed any interest in trains nor any of my brothers or sisters!! My interest must come from my great uncle Thomas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good job uncle Thomas wasn't on tank engines!! :D

My interest was from one Grandfather being a ganger on the railway, I didn't know of all my other connections with the line then. Grandfathers house was just a meadow from the goods yard and we lived at my grandparents for a while. I can remember watching shunting in the yard through the three wire fence around the yard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

roddy1.jpg

I grew up between two railway lines. The old house is gone now and rebuilt. (arrowed) There was a subway under the station which gave us access to the river and the circled area. The large warehouse initially was waste land until BRS built a depot on it. The rough larger area was a goods yard with an industrial railway following the line on what is now the road called Riverside. There was also a lock in the middle of that area that was the start of the old Canal that wasn't profitable, and was built over with the coming of the railways. Non of my group of pals, or I were interested in the trains, even when they were still steamers. More concerned with raking around the river and goods yard and industrial line. Nothing more than a group of little ragamuffins up to mischief. Dad however had grown up with traction engines and his love of steam rubbed off. Although not bothered at the time, I can remember the London terminii full of soot, smoke, and hissing engines, and can recall the long trips from Strood to Inverness to visit Grandparents. Steam hauled and double headed after Perth(?)

It's only a later modelling interest that bought me back to railways, but ships or anything else will do really.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I didn't until I saw a TV programme last week about the age of the Paddle Steamers. ;)

The pier shown on my picture used to be served by The Medway Queen, which ran from Strood to Southend and on to Clacton. We had some lovely family day trips on her. I'm teetotal and my family weren't drinkers, so I used to go to watch the engines without being sent to get me out of the way of the drinking session.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry I'm not good at getting the maps onto the pages so here are the links.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/United+Kingdom/@51.2569946,-1.6285073,330m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x25a3b1142c791a9:0xc4f8a0433288257a!6m1!1e1

This shows where my family lived with my grandparents for a while, you can see by the trees on the old through line, the other side of the main A342 road that the railway alignment has been moved away from the houses. Gould close and Hei-lin way weren't there then. That was the Doctors meadow owned by another branch of my family. My grandfathers house was the nearest on the main road (with the caravan in the garden)to the railway.

The railway is much changed since I lived there.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/United+Kingdom/@51.2550759,-1.6246985,330m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x25a3b1142c791a9:0xc4f8a0433288257a!6m1!1e1

Hei-lin way is now in the top left hand corner,

The Civilian side of the railway, my Great grand parents on the other side of the family owned the coal yard, which was just below the Tidworth road and above the railway by the road bridge, it now has houses on it as does the station, Eleanor Court, and Empress way are mostly on the platforms, and you can see the Station approach road which aimed at the station buildings .

If you scan this map to the right a little then just above Andover Road you'll see Rawlings court which is built on the site of the coal yard they moved to, after the Railway closed to civilian traffic. It's named after that side of the family.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...