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Trains

Wally!

Trains! I love them. Grinning 

I'm lucky to live close to a major train line and on good days I go out and watch the trains go by. Sometimes I'll take my camera with me, not always but sometimes it's nice to get a picture or 20.

My favourite train is the First Great Western hst 43 Class Grinning I only got to travel just one time on one with my parents when we went to London for a show. Straight away I loved the style of this train, the smell of diesel and I became instantly fascinated behind the mechanics of it. 

I wish this one was still running. I went on a steam engine not so long ago, I think train journeys are an enjoyable experience. I use my phone and do videos when I'm on train journeys. 

  • In my younger days I loved them. As a teenager I used to visit my grandfather on the train. It involved changing twice. At one station interchange I used to see large diesels with names. I remember doing the last part of the journey on the new Intercity 125 s with electric doors internally. They seemed very modern compared to the trains at my home station. 

    I also remember seeing the last steam train in a local line, but I understand now after many years of work from volunteers they are back on the original route.

    I often used to go on day trips on the train with my Mum in the holidays. I loved seeing the countryside we passed by, especially on the line with a railcar as it passed through villages. There was a grass bank not far from our home station where we would always see rabbits if it was close to dusk.

    We used to get copy each year from our local station of the full timetables for the year. We could then plan our own journeys. With it came a map of the rail network which I fixed to my bedroom door. Every time I went on a new line I coloured over the line. I even remember planning a day trip my family did to a city a distance away and planning a different route back from the way we went. That would be difficult now with the online searches. I also remember once going on holiday by train and it was diverted, for many this would have been an inconvenience, but for me it meant more tracks to cover.

    Today I rarely travel by train and now where I live there are not many interesting options.

  • I love trains in a completely different way. They're fast, (mostly) comfortable and relatively green, also fairly reliable where I am. I once had a transatlantic flight and then a train on the other side and the train was soooo much more pleasant.

    If we had no trains and the only options were buses I would die. 

  • Seriously, though, I love train travel; even though it isn't accessible for me, close by.

    I did visit the Ulster Transport Museum, back in 2021, whenever I turned 42. Didn't stay too long; just snapping photos. It was still the time of the ZANU Normal.

  • I remember, one Monday night in Portrush after Tracks Nightclub at First Year in Uni, I was outside a chippy; with a drunk Bird who kept calling me a 'Trainspotter' due to the coat I wore. Afterwards, the stick I got from my Mates was grief. Back then, I didn't know how to deal with disappointment.