Can you remember the first time you went on a train? where did you go?
Answers:
Yes when I travelled by steam train from London to Carlisle when I was a wee Lassie.
The coaches of the train had separate compartments and each had 6 seats either side. All the seats had little white covers on the headrest and there were blinds to pull down when it was dark outside.
The outside of each compartment had a corridor running the length of the each coach. This was good as you could go down the whole length of the train by running along these corridors apart from the 1st class coaches, which in those days were always situated at the front of the train.
If the guard stopped you running along these corridors you would say you were going to find a toilet. When the train was full up people used to stand in the corridors or sit on their leather suitcases reading books or reading their newspapers.
Steam trains made a different noise from that of the electric and deisel trains of today. They used to rock from side to side and the whilstle used blow when the train went under a tunnel it was all so very exciting.
There is a poem recalling a train journey which might sound naff but it just brought the whole experience of travelling on s steam train to life. I can't remember the name of this poem but nodoubt someone will remember.
Nostalgia you can't beat it.
This the poem I was talking about, It has to spoke with the rythm
that a train makes when moving across points and tracks:
Night Mail
This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.
Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.
Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.
Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers' declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.
Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
(W H Auden)
This was derived from two conflicting "internet" sources. Thanks to Peter Ceresole for providing a reconciliation based on the original film, for me the definitive version. (2001-06-27)
i can, i went to uttoxeter, in staffordshire, england
From Calgary, Alberta, Canada to Dawson Creek, BC, Canada..now they dont have passenger service.that was in 1960.I was 7.
it was on the ServernValley railway, an old steam train that runs near Kidderminster, its a tourist attraction and i went was i was about 6. I dont remember the first time i went on a modern train though lol
Yep, from Laharve to Paris in January 1957,
was 1979 i was 5 and my older brothers took me to dublin zoo
i went on the amtrak to chicago last summer it was quite the ride.
in to Downtown Boston (i live there) when i was like not even 1. my Dad used to work at Filenes
i once went on a train with out a ticket,mind you i was helping my mum on to the train with her cases at the time and the doors closed and i ended up at watford lol.
not sure of the 1st i remember..the the 1st time i was on a train i was 6 wks old then on a plane to nz...yippy..thanx for the 2 points
I went to dundee
Euston to Liverpool in 1948 or 49. I think Robinsnest may be referring to the poem "Night-mail" by Sir John Betjeman - it formed the commentary to the film of the same name.
The answers post by the user, for information only, UKQnA.com does not guarantee the right.