Messing about with boats planes and trains.....well trains.
Discussion
As a young person trains were still a rage. Either trainspotting, model railways, "bashing" or general mischief. Anyone else have a railway-mania mischief phase in their youth.
Instances I remember (see French holidays thread for first post):
- I remember the big French firework petards around the size of a 440mL can being brought back. We had great times dropping them into a iron pipe that we'd found by local railway embankment and watching the tennis balls we dropped in after fly over the railway if we got the angle right. It must have been heard in the drivers cab and he hit the brakes - we found out later from a friends Dad that "double dets" going bang on the line mean 'emergency stop train ahead broke down'.
- We did graduate from above to a furnace made from brick with the iron pipe inserted in, and UK spec aerosols being used as petards..........we managed to hit a train that time and became known not for the last instance to the BTP. Teenagers cannot run faster than BTP in Vauxhall Astras we found.
- Turning off and knicking the T-key from 08 shunters in Tinsley Marshalling Yard. Getting a kicking on about the eight time when we finally got caught.
- Our local station used to have a local train stop to pick up the kids from the grammar to take to the next town along (usually an old gaspy clapped out Derby lightweight even though the 142s and 150s were starting to appear). We used to hang around but not get on that train as the next train, a couple of days a week was a Cl37 hauled Conflats train, which followed the stopper and usually slowed for the dispatch signal in our station at red and caught up the stopper when it was held outside the next station where you could jump off and run down the embankment to the canal and off into the town without going through the station. Except once it wasn't held and went through our usual jumping spot at around 20-30 mph to be wrong pathed into platform 1 at the next station when we were met by BTPs finest. Needless to say, they gave us a b
king, our parents were called to the station and we were put up in front of the school for a b)llking a couple of assemblys later.
- Speaking of parents being called out. We used to try at weekends to see who could get the furthest from home without being caught and being given a chit by the guard to buy the right ticket before being sent home. I managed Yorkshire - Glasgow. Rids managed to do Yorkshire - Kings Cross twice in one day. Only on the second time he got caught by the same guard. Handed to BTP who made is Mum come down from Yorkshire to pay the fares and pick him up in person. She was of course fuming and spent the entire return trip whacking Rids up and down the train back to Donny. He was well impressed. It was his first ride behind an Intercity 225 (Electra) Loco.
- Early Ubex. Our local tunnel was about 1.5 miles long, wide, dry, you could see both ends from each other, plenty of platelayers refuges in the tunnel wall - a mere slightly dingy passage of rights that most lads and quite a good number of lasses did over the years. So what on earth inspired us to get tickets to Grindleford (not wanting to raise suspicion we were travelling legit) and decide to walk back through 3.5 miles to the Sheffield end God knows. Dark, hump in the middle so you can't see light at both ends...torches, ha for amateurs who want to give their position away...., soaking wet, huge cement trains passing inches from our noses as we failed in the dark to find platelayers refuges. Strangely smelt majorly of pee.
- 2p challenge. Putting 2ps on the rails and seeing how long a chain of fused 2ps you could make. There was actually quite a lot of skill to this, not enough overlap as you 2p sword got longer it would fail (you had to raise it Penny Mourdant like in front of you to prove who'd got the biggest sword, then use it to defeat the previous owner of the record - if you placed the 2ps right you could get quite a sharp side on them). Too close and they wouldn't squash. All before CCTV I think but eventually we got caught, again. This time we were hauled up in front of afternoon assembly at the end of the week and the local BTP and local undertaker came to give us a talk about deaths on the railways. The local undertaker finished with "an intercity 125 came through that station as a person threw themselves under it. We found the head 800yards down the line, the brain seeping out like rancid corned beef". I'm sure he had been put up to this, as yes, it had been corned beef for lunch. A few lots of dinner money were wasted and children invited to stay behind to help the school cleaners clean up.
Years later I got to drive a Deltic and that ended my fascination with messing about with train.
Instances I remember (see French holidays thread for first post):
- I remember the big French firework petards around the size of a 440mL can being brought back. We had great times dropping them into a iron pipe that we'd found by local railway embankment and watching the tennis balls we dropped in after fly over the railway if we got the angle right. It must have been heard in the drivers cab and he hit the brakes - we found out later from a friends Dad that "double dets" going bang on the line mean 'emergency stop train ahead broke down'.
- We did graduate from above to a furnace made from brick with the iron pipe inserted in, and UK spec aerosols being used as petards..........we managed to hit a train that time and became known not for the last instance to the BTP. Teenagers cannot run faster than BTP in Vauxhall Astras we found.
- Turning off and knicking the T-key from 08 shunters in Tinsley Marshalling Yard. Getting a kicking on about the eight time when we finally got caught.
- Our local station used to have a local train stop to pick up the kids from the grammar to take to the next town along (usually an old gaspy clapped out Derby lightweight even though the 142s and 150s were starting to appear). We used to hang around but not get on that train as the next train, a couple of days a week was a Cl37 hauled Conflats train, which followed the stopper and usually slowed for the dispatch signal in our station at red and caught up the stopper when it was held outside the next station where you could jump off and run down the embankment to the canal and off into the town without going through the station. Except once it wasn't held and went through our usual jumping spot at around 20-30 mph to be wrong pathed into platform 1 at the next station when we were met by BTPs finest. Needless to say, they gave us a b
king, our parents were called to the station and we were put up in front of the school for a b)llking a couple of assemblys later.- Speaking of parents being called out. We used to try at weekends to see who could get the furthest from home without being caught and being given a chit by the guard to buy the right ticket before being sent home. I managed Yorkshire - Glasgow. Rids managed to do Yorkshire - Kings Cross twice in one day. Only on the second time he got caught by the same guard. Handed to BTP who made is Mum come down from Yorkshire to pay the fares and pick him up in person. She was of course fuming and spent the entire return trip whacking Rids up and down the train back to Donny. He was well impressed. It was his first ride behind an Intercity 225 (Electra) Loco.
- Early Ubex. Our local tunnel was about 1.5 miles long, wide, dry, you could see both ends from each other, plenty of platelayers refuges in the tunnel wall - a mere slightly dingy passage of rights that most lads and quite a good number of lasses did over the years. So what on earth inspired us to get tickets to Grindleford (not wanting to raise suspicion we were travelling legit) and decide to walk back through 3.5 miles to the Sheffield end God knows. Dark, hump in the middle so you can't see light at both ends...torches, ha for amateurs who want to give their position away...., soaking wet, huge cement trains passing inches from our noses as we failed in the dark to find platelayers refuges. Strangely smelt majorly of pee.
- 2p challenge. Putting 2ps on the rails and seeing how long a chain of fused 2ps you could make. There was actually quite a lot of skill to this, not enough overlap as you 2p sword got longer it would fail (you had to raise it Penny Mourdant like in front of you to prove who'd got the biggest sword, then use it to defeat the previous owner of the record - if you placed the 2ps right you could get quite a sharp side on them). Too close and they wouldn't squash. All before CCTV I think but eventually we got caught, again. This time we were hauled up in front of afternoon assembly at the end of the week and the local BTP and local undertaker came to give us a talk about deaths on the railways. The local undertaker finished with "an intercity 125 came through that station as a person threw themselves under it. We found the head 800yards down the line, the brain seeping out like rancid corned beef". I'm sure he had been put up to this, as yes, it had been corned beef for lunch. A few lots of dinner money were wasted and children invited to stay behind to help the school cleaners clean up.
Years later I got to drive a Deltic and that ended my fascination with messing about with train.
Oh and Rids perfecting a technique whereby a brick on rope dropped outside a droplight in the central fourfoot in a station, attached to the emergency cord would catch on a sleeper end and pulled the communication cord and stop the train before it had got away. Of course being in the central four foot the job stopped both ways (gave us excellent chance to photo stationary trains). Utterly t w at ti sh and dangerous for staff thinking about it nowadays.
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