I started getting interested in train at about aged 11 (1979). I have to blame my Grandad for this. Although he was not interested in the actual trains he enjoyed train travel and used to take me on mystery and day excursions mainly from Blackburn. During this period these were almost exclusively promoted and operated by British Rail. We also used to use the excellent Senior Citizen Railcard offers, which operated in the winter months, anywhere for £2 and you could take children for £1 as well. The tickets were flat fare and had no destination printed on them so they were an All Line Rover for £3 for both of us. We used to have day trips all over the country mainly planned by me armed with a big bag of sandwiches and bottle of cordial drink to sustain us throughout the day. 

 

As a got a little older I used to save money from my paper round in order to buy train tickets and explore the network and see new trains. At the age of 14 I was travelling to many places on my own in safely. The world of 2009 while writing this is a very different place. In these pages are some of the trips I can remember during this time but some of my record keeping in the early years was a bit random and trains worked by multiple units were not recorded.

 

These pages cover before meeting Mrs Track Basher and the arrival of number one son, number two son and number one daughter. Didn't have enough money to travel by train from this period so found something else to do! This turned out to be even more expensive than train travel.

 

Just for the record Mrs Track Basher is not very interested in trains but does like to travel on them but not to the extent some of these trips go to. She is very understanding when I and now we want to go wandering off on trains.

 

It is a wonder how in these early years we found out about events that were taking place as the information had to be gleaned from railway magazines or mailing lists. Things like Internet, email and mobile phones had not been invented. In 2009 you want to be in contact with everyone at any time but back in these years you disappeared off on the train and no one knew where you where until you arrived back phoning from the station using the payphone to inform home that you needed picking up.

 

I hope you enjoy reading these pages and I hope you will excuse any errors in the up to 30 years that have passed since writing this in 2009. Much of this has been done from memory, which is not as good as it used to be.