The evocative sounds of releasing train air brakes of old….

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

Being brought up Woking, Surrey, I have vivid memories of standing on Woking station and watching the station staff uncouple the down ex Waterloo 8-Car electric units into two 4-Car sets, one for forward travel to Alton, the second unit bound for Portsmouth Harbour. The uncoupling was accompanied by the sound of rushing air, the sound of which always comes to mind when releasing air from my workshop compressor. The process was repeated for the up journey where the two units were recombined back to an 8-car unit with the brake pipes being re coupled for the return trip to Waterloo. Anyone else have similar memories of train operations in the 50-60s? Train travel was so much more interesting in those days but then I am a MOG….

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Oh yes, the smell left behind when someone "pulled the chain" whilst in the station – It was actually a foot pedal if I remember correctly.

Woking station where they built the facade on the wrong side !

Bob

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Could be worse places than in the station to pull the chain…

….. Such as on the recently-demolished Weymouth Harbour branch-line that conveyed the "boat trains" from the main line to the ferry terminal. The line ran, urban tram style, along one of the town's streets.

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As for evocative sounds, that for me was the steady "clank-clank-clank-clank- " of loose-coupled goods vans and mineral wagons ambling along fish-plated track.

These particular trains were on the Weymouth-Portland branch-line, which had closed to passenger services some years before we moved to the area. They were hauled until the last year or so before closure in 1965 if I recall aright, by ex-GWR 57xx pannier-tanks, then a Standard Class tank (I think).

Its customers were primarily Whiteheads Torpedo Factory (private sidings), RN Portland (now a commercial port) and the Portland Stone quarries and masonry works up on 'Tophill' (of Portland).

We could see the trains too. Our home had a spacious vista over intervening homes, of Portland Harbour, with the lower margin of the sea visible to us being the top of an embankment carrying the line across a broad valley.

The track at least as far as the Navy Base was intact for quite a long time after the final workings; and occasionally, late at night in quiet weather I would still hear the "steady clank-clank-clank-clank- " of…. Eh? Is BR running confidential services to Her Majesty's Ships? Bit hard to keep a goods train secret, and I could see ships but not trains.

It were our Dad who solved the puzzle: anchor-chains! The sound of warships in mid-anchorage, weighing anchor, was almost identical to the so-familiar sound of goods rolling-stock of that era….

[Perko7Participant @perko7]

For me it is the chorus of slamming timber doors shut as the guard whistles for the right-away. Our local suburban trains in Brisbane in the 60's were a mix of newer stainless steel centre-aisle cars with auto doors at each end, and older timber cross-bench cars with doors to each compartment that only had a handle on the outside. Can't remember the name of the type of latch but they often needed a good hard push to close properly.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

In the early 1980s I worked alongside a pair of old Garratt steam locos constantly shunting back and forth wagons of incoming steel and machinery for the construction of a power station at Hwange, western Zimbabwe. A beautiful sight and sound to behold when viewed from up on the steelwork of the power station, or standing next to the tracks waiting to cross to our (Kent Instruments) workshop. And the African drivers gave the old locos no mercy, spinning the wheels every time they took off or reversed. How many jobs do you get that added advantage as part of the package? They were out there chuffing away all day, every day except Sundays.

They used those old Garratts to pull passenger and goods trains across the country too. Zim had plenty of coal to burn, but diesel fuel had to be imported and they had no foreign currency to pay for it. So they had pulled the old steam trains out of the public parks where they had become kids' playthings and recommissioned them. I would have taken some pics but could have been locked up as an "imperialist spy" so never did. Shame.

I did apply for a job at the railways there, but was knocked back on account of less-than-perfect eyesight. I was ok to walk around on the steelwork 10 storeys up on top of the boilers under construction, but the railways insisted on driver-standard perfect eyesight for all employees. Would have been a hoot to be working on steam trains for a living in the 1980s. But the view from the 10th storey out over the neighbouring national park complete with elephants and giraffes etc etc wandering down to drink the water from the bottom of the nearby open cut coal pit was just as good, all to a soundtrack of those two old Garratts.

[J HancockParticipant @jhancock95746]

The 'chime' whistle of the Britannia's , especially at night on the Norwich – L'pool St line.

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