Steams Last Whistle
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มี.ค. 2024
- Join me in a nostalgic trip back, to a time of fading steam and bittersweet schoolyard memories in North West England. If only we could have known how quickly things would change.
As usual, I have made great efforts to credit the authors of any photos I have used, but if you have any issues, please get in touch and I will take down any offending material.
Reminds me of my own family, railroad men on both sides going back several generations, so I guess I get it honest liking trains.
All but one that still do or are retired now are pretty standoffish about it, which I never really understood. Never talked much about rail matters around them as I'd get a withering glance or a pitying "you silly young fool" look.
My one uncle who was a carman in the shops was the exact opposite, thought it was nice I took an interest and always has a kind word to say when I would share the progress of my model layouts and other things like that.
Thanks, yes, I always found it strange, the (perhaps) feigned disinterest with the railmen. My uncle, the loco driver, was one of the kindest people I have known, but couldn’t understand my liking for trains. So yes, I feel your pain! Thanks for the comment👍
Thanks for the reply, and thanks for making and posting the video, found it very enjoyable!
Guess it's why it gets called "the bug". It's an affliction that defies explanation and there isn't any cure for it besides another dose of rail action.
Pure nostalgia with brilliant narration!
Thank you very much! I’m really pleased that you enjoyed it👍
I could listen to you all day.
That’s very kind of you, thank you👍
I love these videos - in fact this whole channel! As a person of today's youth, i do wish i experienced the days if steam . There may have been bad parts of these times but i still envy people with your types of experiences!
Thanks, I’m so pleased you enjoy the videos and that it’s not just us old gricers watching😂 yes, I was incredibly lucky to see the last ten years of steam, being in the north of england. At the time, of course, we all wished we’d seen steam in the thirties, in the heyday! Now I feel old😅 Thanks again for your very kind comment👍
Sorry, but there weren't all that many bad parts of the 60s! The last of steam and then ...... the Beatles! Great decade, I'm very thankful to have been there!
Simply brilliant. A great trip down memory lane with super poignant commentary
Thank you so much, very pleased that you liked the video👍
I remember my school - The King’s School, Grantham - the playing fields next to the ECML - a long time ago!
We were the lucky ones, with playing fields next to the school! Yes, it was a long time ago! Thanks for your comment👍
growing up much more recent out in the middle of nowhere, USA, i get very envious whenever i hear people talk of a "school model railway club" or really any trains at all, as they practically don't exist here.
Sorry to hear that…. I guess we were very lucky back then. I don’t think school model railway clubs exist these days, that’s all lost out to mobile phones and what have you… but it must be tough not seeing trains at all. Thanks for your comment👍
I thoroughly enjoyed your story! I was raised in the early 50's by a railroad family in Cheyenne, Wyoming, home of the "Big Boys," the 4000's. We lived only four hundred yards from the east yards, and I loved every minute of it. I still remember the flashes of yellow as I spotted the Streamliners passing past the yard buildings. They came and went mornings and evenings on a schedule so good you could set your clock by them. The biggest thrills were when my grand-dad would take me to the roundhouse where the giant steamers lived, then out to the west end of town so we could stand next to the tracks when a double- or triple-header of Big Boys or Challengers came thundering out building speed for the climb up Sherman Hill - the steepest on the system. To this day, as I lie in bed on quiet nights, I can recall the sounds of the tiny switch engines (shunters) in the yards as they spun out the drivers. Thanks for the memory trip!
My goodness, that sounds so exotic! I can only dream of what you saw…double headed Challengers indeed, you are so fortunate. What a time to live in when that kind of thing was the norm. I liked your description of the switchers, spinning out… great memories. I’m really delighted that my video brought back some of those memories- and thank you so much for your lovely comment👍
@@iainrobinson6566 👍
Recently discovered your channel and I’m loving your work! Keep it up!
Thank you very much, I’m really pleased that you’re enjoying the vids👍 Another is in preparation!
Me too, these are wonderfully illustrated reminiscences. Thank you for reawakening my own!
Glad you enjoyed the vid, and thank you for the lovely comment👍
The rebuild Patriots were probably the best Engines ever built, excellent. Love your Videos which really capture the Atmosphere at a Time when I too was enjoying the real Railways.
Thank you… yes, I loved the Patriots, really fine locos. I’m delighted you are enjoying the videos, thanks for your comment👍
Brilliant video,thoroughly enjoyed it,Well done,what memories
Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed it! Yes, great memories👍
Excellent very enjoyable
Thank you, Paul, glad to hear you enjoyed it!
@@iainrobinson6566 you are welcome
Hi Iain, Thank you so much for your great memories, so many are exactly the same as I have. I was spotting these engines down the North Wales coast at the same time. I saw Patriot, Sir Frank Ree many times, but sadly the Patriots were not around for much longer. I could not believe my luck when I had a student teacher who was into trains and he gave me a photograph of BR Britannia 70023 Venus on Bangor shed and another of LMS Princess number 6203, Princess Margaret Rose being hauled by Ivatt 2-6-0 through Bangor on it's way to Butlins Holiday Camp, Pwllheli. All my mates had the enamel loco badges. I wanted the Hornby Coronation class loco but I was devastated that it would be no good for running on my Triang track. For a short time, my school was close to the main line. I could hear the steam trains but could not see them, so I usually missed the interesting locos during lessons. I often travelled back home by train instead of the bus. If I caught the train at 4.30pm it would be hauled by a black 5 and LMS stock, but If I waited until 5pm then it would be a Coronation with newish BR Mk1's. Beautiful days, trouble is they passed by too quickly. I toured all the Manchester sheds before they closed.
Thanks very much for your comment! It must have been quite something seeing a baby Scot or a Duchess on the North Wales coast line, I envy you that. And your memories of travelling home behind steam. They were brilliant times, tinged with such sadness at the demise of steam. I had a small oval of three rail track, must say my Duchess looked a bit silly going round with its coaches! Really nice to hear your lovely reminiscences, thank you👍
@@iainrobinson6566 You're very welcome, Iain.👍 Here in N.Wales, we had a great show of different classes on the line. I can include early patriots, the solitary Duke of Gloucester and the occasional Thompson B1. For a youngster that should not be taking life too seriously, I found the demise of the steam locos and Beaching's drastic line cuts quite upsetting. I was at the age were I was so lucky to witness them, but it was over far too quickly. Still I have those lovely memories to look back on.
Aw, the Duke? Wow, I am envious. But don’t get me started about Beeching. To a teenager with limited experience and political insight, Even I could smell a rat. Cheers👍
Maths teacher in the coach toilet love it 😂 regards Fred
Thanks, Fred, really glad you appreciated my revenge👍
Hello again Iain,
This is an excellent reminisce, and to me, the best so far. But that is not say all your others have not been, far from it...
Cricket made me sit up and take note, as a 12yr old whilst fielding as you were, and alongside the line from M/C Central close to Chorlton Jct, the 'down' home signal was 'off' , a fast moving train was approaching, it was a Scot!
"Catch" a few team mates shouted... one eye on the ball and t'orher on the engine, when 'thud' - missed both!!!
The ball broke the bridge of my nose (I still suffer 64 yrs later!) ...
Oh the engine I was told by a spotter school chum was 46129 'The Scottish Horse'... best of all, Iain - it was a 'cop!
Keep 'em coming.
Cheers.
George.
Hi George! Good to hear from you again. Thank you so much for your very kind words. That’s a brilliant story, what bad luck though, to catch the ball on the nose. I never copped many “Scots”, apart from Scots Guardsman and a couple of others. I lived for a while very neat Chorlton junction as a student and when the 40s came past, you thought the house was going to come down! You and I and so many like us must have some great stories, I shall keep combing the memory banks for more! Thanks again, Iain👍
@iainrobinson6566
Thanks again Iain,
Those Cl 40's you mention were they in fact 'Peaks'? Sulzer Type 4's (44,45,46's). During my short spell at 9E the men raved over the Sulzers, claiming the EE4's could not pull the skin off a rice pudding 😀
You'll note my "Call Sign" is Geo46115... reason it was the first I cabbed and being a 9A stalwart for years and years 'she' became a close 'friend'. A late uncle was a fireman at Longsight - lucky me eh!😉
@@Geo46115Hi George, thanks very much for your comment! I think you might be right, I wasn’t keen in diesels back then, although I like them now. My student flat was in a house that overlooked the sidings, just a scrubby area, but boy, the house really shook when those locos went past! My uncle also said that the “Whistlers” were a lot of fuss about nothing as he put it😂. Interesting to hear of your “cabbings”, yes I can imagine how you could get attached to a loco! Great stuff, George and thank you so much for the comment!👍
fantastic , thank you , i think you were just like me i spent a lot of time out of school just to see trains and i wasn,t good at maths , i live north of derby so see quite a few 37,s , thanks again
Thank you, yes, school was a nuisance when there were trains! My mate Dave was as bad as me for dodging school, but he became a maths professor at Cambridge, so it didn’t do him any harm! Thanks for your comment👍
I still can't sleep unless I hear the sound of a train on a track joint. Lived right next to a rail line moving coal and other stuff for years. Driver sometimes stopped the train to jump the fence and get his lunchbox from his house over the road. Miss those days. Many a tale from my nan getting strafed by the Germans on the ammo train or comming home from work. What people. Won't see the like again.
I know what you mean, I miss the sound of shunting, the metal clangs of the buffers and the sudden chuffing of the loco pushing a run of trucks. AI can’t replicate that. Great times, and the generation before mine were extraordinary people. Thanks for your comment👍
"A sea of Uniformity" Magic.
Thanks very much 👍...I know I sound like a miserable old git, but while things were dirty and unhealthy back then, everywhere didn't look like everywhere else!
@@iainrobinson6566 I suspect I was at School in the decade before you. Hemel was my stomping ground with the old main line from Tring. Black fives were the norm then for freight ops but My dad used to photograph a bit. '68 was when I joined up. Got a bot of a taster of German Steam after that.
@@leoroverman4541
We were very lucky, weren't we! OK, so I mostly saw 8F's, but the occasional patriot or super D was quite something. I saw a bit of Italian steam myself, but all my photos were destroyed. There's a story to that, which I will tell soon, on here 😀
@@iainrobinson6566 I actually saw 8F 's operating in north Africa between Benghazi and Alex as a kid. Great fun popping stones on the lines and hearing them crunch. Incidentally that line runs though Alamein.
Blimey, what a memory! You certainly had a cosmopolitan past, I can’t top that. We should all be writing books😅 👍
SUPERB! Thank you, Stewart
Thank you, so pleased that you enjoyed it! Cheers, Iain.
Interesting video, the Buxton line you refer to I assume was the route via Guide Bridge and Romiley , if your school was in Hyde ?
Thanks👍 yes, I started at King’s Macc, but then transferred to Hyde. You are right, it was the Romiley route.
My school was next to the railway at chorley. A western named 47 passed which was rare in the 70,s. Got a clip round the ear from history teacher. Ironic as I spent my life working on the railway. History was useless to me. 😂 Could.nt see the numbers from the class but it was a short name. I can still feel the frustration 😮
Very frustrating! Our history lessons, much like yours I imagine, had no relevance to anything. King Charles the first, etc etc. I had the feeling that it was all going on outside in the real world, but inside school was as dull as ditchwater. Now I’m quite keen on industrial history😂
The photo at 3:30 is of my old Housemaster, Frank Garside, at Magdalen College School, Oxford.
That’s amazing! He must have been a strict old cove, judging from the photo😂 That info adds another dimension, thanks for the comment👍
Funnily enough, he was a kindly soul. The stick was used as a pointer, rather than a weapon, unlike in the hands of other teachers. He was a Tory councillor and the Sheriff of Oxford at that time too. Love your videos, Iain, superb!
So glad to hear that his visage belied his true nature😀 I feel bad now, making him look like an old martinet! I’m so pleased that you enjoy my videos, thank you👍👍
@@iainrobinson6566 Final comment, one of my schoolfriends has asked, purely out of interest, where you sourced the photo.
@@jhastings01 I searched for “strict schoolmaster”, I think. I’ll do a reverse image search later and let you know.
Was that Hyde Grammar School? Blimey it must be hard to focus, were window blinds not a thing back then? Not saying they will be of much use. 🤣
Yes, it was. Hyde seemed quite impecunious, and my maths class room was in a prefab building quite near the railway. There were two of us in the class who were enthusiasts and we bagged the seats next to the windows asap! I’m so glad there were no window blinds, that would have been torture! Thanks for the comment👍