Book Description

A fascinating tale of a young school boy's exploits in his quest to spot every steam locomotive in the UK during the 1950s & 1960s, until steam finished on British Railways on 4th August 1968. at the time I lived in North Hertfordshire, so my trainspotting days began mainly at Hitchin on the ECML. I later moved to Guildford and carried on from there. I was fortunate in that I recorded virtually all my activities and furthermore have retained those records to this day. In those days before computers and mobile phones Trainspotting was one of the most popular hobbies in the country. My travels covered virtually the whole of the UK over a 10 year period. During that time along with my friends we had lots of interesting and sometimes amusing incidents; such as the Castleford 'Snow' occurrence; contretemps with a herd of Bullocks; run-ins with the law and shed foremen; sleeping rough on many occasions; a scary walk over Crumlin viaduct; our coach catching fire on the M1; plus many more. we visited locomotive sheds over 600 times during which I recorded in excess of 21,000 engines! We travelled by any means available; coach; bus; mini-bus; bicycle; car; motorbike; train; ferry; and a lot of hitchhiking! The latter including one such ride on a 9F which took me right into the shed I was about to bunk! We would take every opportunity to be by our beloved steam engines, daily on the way to & from school, then again in the evenings and every 2-3 weeks off an a tour somewhere in the UK some of these lasted 4 -5 days, often with rather dubious overnight accommodation! these tours were to all parts of the UK, from South Wales to Aberdeen, the Northwest, Northeast, Midlands, North Wales, south to Brighton, Southampton, Isle of Wight, West country and dozens of other locations The book has full colour card covers, is A4 portrait style of 185 pages and over 100 B & W photos. At the end of the text are two appendices, the first lists every shed visited and the relevant dates, the second lists in chronological order every locomotive seen, its shed and date. Barrie