My first interest in railways was during my childhood. I lived in a house that was only two roads away from Catford Bridge Station.

 During school holidays I would watch the trains go by while in the local park (Ladywell Recreation Ground) or from Dogget Road that ran next to the railway. Both the road and the park were only separated from the railway by a chain link fence making observation easy. At that time the only trains that ran through Catford Bridge were green 2 and 4 EPB slam door units, but with one daily exception. During the morning a diesel hauled freight train would sit in a siding adjacent to Dogget Road. At the time I did not know why it was there, or even what kind of locomotives were used. To this day many of these questions remain unanswered, but a more informed guess now was that the train was heading for Sydenham gas works and was in the siding until the morning rush hour subsided.

Once I started secondary school my railway interest faded away and it was not until I accepted redundancy from work in 1992 that my interest re-awakened. Actually that is not strictly true. During my period of my first job, which lasted for over 20 years, I became very curious about railway geography. I would be travelling around in a car and pass various railway stations and railway bridges. It always seemed a bit of a mystery to me about where these railway lines came from and went to. At the same time I would look at the London Underground tube map and wonder where all those exotic stations actually were. Places like Ongar and Chesham were sitting at the end of the line, but I had no idea where they were or what they looked like. So after accepting a large redundancy payment, and with plenty of time on my hands I set out exploring the London rail network.

To this day the greater part of my enthusiasm is learning the geography and history of the rail network. This is a bit strange because the two subjects at school I hated most were geography and history. I can reconcile this to a certain extent because now I can choose to learn as much or as little as I want. In fact I do tend to pick out a few interesting facts and forget the rest.

You can't be a rail enthusiast without knowing something about the trains themselves. For me it is not about quantity (hence no collecting numbers), but about variety. I am curious about new trains and very nostalgic about old trains. I can't recall ever wanting to be a train driver so it is the passenger environment that attracts me. Although like most people, enthusiasts or not, it would be nice to be able to see out the front and look where the train is going. Where possible I do like to travel in older trains, or in this case carriages would be a more appropriate term. I believe that the older carriages are more comfortable and have withstood the effects of aging better. Many new carriages seem to look very dirty and shabby in a very short space of time.

To finish this page here is a selection of older trains. You can click on the pictures for a larger view and some notes about them.

On the next page I will explain about some of the rail societies I belong to.