Model Railway Forum

Born into the railways 1951, father , granddad and great uncle all worked on the Potts.

Riding in cab of a standard 4 tank when I was 3 years old. Dad was taking photographs at Wincanton of the creamery sidings being shunted when the driver who he happened to know lifted me up into the cab. Used to go to Templecombe every Saturday with Dad to watch the bulleids on the expresses . Plenty of slipping on the 1 in 80 gradient westbound! After the s&d closed went to Castle Cary instead but the Hymeks Warships and Westerns were not the same! Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

I am told that I saw Beyer Garratts on the old Midland line when I was in my pushchair but my first memory of trains was seeing colliery
locomotives on a line which linked the old LNWR West coast main line to the Midland railway.
This passed through a factory making stoneware products and a pub nearby was called the "Engine Inn".
Streets on the "new" estate built behind the pub are named after railway themes such as "Silver Link" , "Collett" and even "Chapeleon"!
I lived near the WCML and the station was four tracked with the signal box between the two pairs of up and down tracks.
One of the signalmen had built a ground level "0" gauge track at the end of the north bound platform and I and friends used to run
our Hornby clockwork locos on it occasionally.
Unusually there was another colliery line nearby linking the LNER and MR and on one section a Garratt was used. The storekeeper at the
engineering works where I served my apprenticeship was once the relief driver for the Garratt so could tell some tales about his experiences
especially where the line crossed the main A5 Watling Street which was busy even in those days.
The Garratt is now in Bressingham museum.
I remember seeing the early Diesels on the WCML , The English Electric pair and the three Southern Railway versions and later the
Blue Deltic. From the school sports field we could see a viaduct and we knew that when the Deltic came past it was almost time to
get off the cold field.
I still live near the WCML and can hear it occasionally and as a modeller of North American railroads the sound of the class 66s is
a sound I like.
Colin.

Being taken to Burton on Trent loco sheds by my uncle around 1950 and being on the footplate of an engine in the roundhouse, he lifted me up to “ pull it’s ears” to make it whistle. Later trainspotting at Barton &Walton station on the Derby Tamworth line, progressing to Litchfield Trent Valley on the WCML, in the days of Duchesses, Scott’s, Pates and later the DP1 in blue,