I'll start: I was totally influenced from a very young age by my grandfather (who was a freight train engineer)
I’m a late developer, with me it was moving back to London in 2020 and getting my free over 60 travel pass. From travelling around on them to becoming an enthusiast and going to Bethnal Green station photographing the vast array of stock Greater Anglia had back then, along with Overground and TFL. It was such great variety. From there chasing freight at Kensington Olympia and so on. Then going to vintage train galas too. Soo much to learn.
NYC subway. My fascination since I could remember has been aircraft’s. I used to watch aircraft land since I was 3 years old. Once I moved to New York City in 1985 I began to just watch the subway specifically the 6 train. I still remember the trains fully covered in graffiti Anyways so growing up in the Bronx I was fortunate to live in a place where I had landing pattern for LGA and near the subway station.
Autism... I (half) joke.. but legit have no idea why I like trains.. im not an avid rail fan..like I dont do numbers, i dont know every class, i dont go spotting... but for some reason I like infrastructure.. I like engines.. old diesel trains make cool noises.. and something is oddly calming about 'driving' a virtual train So yeah I dont know.. but I do!!
He's a cheeky little engine with six small wheels, a short stumpy funnel, a short stumpy boiler and a short stumpy dome.
I hated Thomas. My brother, on the other hand, loved the show. However he doesn't give a toss about trains lol. I was born in the North, and my parents would take my brother and I to watch the trains at the local station, Hull, from time to time. I don't really remember much apart from the rumble of diesels. Talking to my parents, they told me every so often drivers would allow us to have a look in the cab and I loved it. We moved down south, living by the ECML. For some reason I had a strange obsession with the 91, mainly because of that back cab. My parents were pretty strict with the games they would allow me to play, but they were fine with train sims. So I spent some time playing Trainz, and eventually they bought me TSC. I rarely played it (as I was a young kid), but 2020 rolled around and with the whole world on lockdown I found myself enjoying the game and it got me exploring the real world equivalents.
My very earliest memory (I must have only been about a year old) was my grandmother looking after me in the day and in the mornings we would take my grandfather his lunch at work. I remember we would go down the hill to the station, across the tracks and up into the signal box. I would sit on a bench at the back, and watch my grandfather pull the leavers, all the brass shining bright, using a duster to pull the levers. GWR steam locos going by. I was fascinated, I was hooked, and have loved trains ever since
I blame my parents for it, as a young kid they bought me a trainset and I was hooked. So, come every Christmas and birthdays I would be asked what did I want, I don't know why they bothered asking. I remember it got to a point where my parents would ask what did I want and they would tell me "and no you are not getting another bloody trainset!" I had a class 37, a class 45, a Deltic and a 9F before the embargo. I remember going into Leeds with my mum and uncle and I picked a maroon 9F. My uncle was equally confused and impressed as to why I picked the 9F, when he asked me why I bought it I remember saying I liked it, couldn't say why I liked it. Hornby trains kept breaking on me to the point my dad asked the shopkeep did they have anything better and he pulled out a Liama set with a Deltic, that trainset was bulletproof. If you threw the Hornby controller at a burglar he would just laugh at you, if you threw the Liama controller he wouldn't be laughing, it was industrial, it weighted a ton.
Here again with the Autism. I dont know why, but they just do something to my brain. Its like a spell. Here is perhaps the best explanation:
My dad was a postman and they got free train tickets for themselves and their family. So we took a train about once a month to go visit something.
The Northeast Regional is what started me on my love of trains. There is nothing like traveling for hours between cities on a train that you can walk around and also watch the world go by your window. Years of taking the Boston to Framingham-Worcester line (also Boston to Forge Park/495) and the Green and Red line MBTA subway have also developed it too. I've even ridden trains in Poland (I took the avi photo in Katowice, Poland iirc) and I plan to ride some French trains next year (no TGV yet).
I don't like trains so to speak, I'm more into the infrastructure (the engineering marvel that is a railway). I grew up going absolutely everywhere on Train or Bus so I owe it to that (and perhaps our good friend Thomas), and even now I've been a commuter for a few months the novelty of using a train hasn't worn off. I just quite enjoy them. Couldn't give a toss about what number the train is or how many wheels it has, though.
I thought it came naturally. I remember walking to playschool and crossing a railway footbridge hoping to see the train pass under it. I think I was around 9 when my parents moved house and the local mill railway run right Infront of it. We used to put pennies on the track and was fascinated by the way they looked after the train passed over them.
Also my Grandfather. It was never an option not to like trains if I wanted to spend time with him. He was very interested in the GWR. His garden shed also overlooked Hackney Yard in Newton Abbot (back when it was still active) and he would often just sit there with a pair of Binoculars. I was too young to remember what he was telling me, but he used to go into great detail! I must have enjoyed it as although he passed away when I was still quite young, I still love trains today
Auntie Vera (my grandad's sister) bought me a wooden railway for my first Christmas. Spiralled from there, not helped that my grandparents live next to a railway and had a caravan at Thirsk near the ECML
My first rail way memories are from family holiday visits from about 1956. I was brought up in Portsmouth (UK) and my father's parents and family lived in Lincoln. Every year we would go by Southern Region Green Electric to Waterloo and across London by bus to King's Cross. Unthinkable now but my brother and I (about 9 and 4 years old) were allowed to roam King's Cross looking at the steam engines until we had to be back to travel by steam to Grantham (I think). It was then a diesel railcar to Lincoln Central where grandad would meet us with a wheelbarrow to carry our luggage back to their terrace house. First thing we did was go back to the footbridge over Lincoln Central where a small steam engine was shunting the yard and travelled to and fro beneath us so we stood in the smoke and steam. I've been hooked on railways since then. I've often though of trying to recreate that journey in TSC (though I think it would have to be Newark to Lincoln) but I wouldn't have a clue about which rolling stock and locomotives to use.
My Grandma had a house in Tenterden overlooking the railway line on the embankment/incline up to the station. I have very very early memories of looking out of the window and watching the J94s absolutely thrashing it up the bank and being mesmerised. In my teens I began engine cleaning down the yard at Rolvenden and also began learning to fire but had to give it up before I could become qualified sadly. But that’s basically where my obsession with railways and steam in particular come from
when the isle of Wight used class 483 then at the time in dinosaur livery when stagecoach had the franchise and of course this guy as well
