In the Spring of this year I bought a second hand camera at a local jumble sale. It was an “Ilford Envoy”, a very basic camera. It took size 120 roll film with 8 exposures per roll. It had no “f” settings or adjustable shutter speed. So it was just “point & click”. On the front of the lens it had the inscription “For faces pull out, for places push in”. This was the only adjustment on the camera!!
Despite these limitations it proved to be a very good reliable camera. I used it until October, 1965 when I bought my first 35mm. camera. During this time it took around 1200 pictures, mostly of trains.
During the school holidays I made a number of trips to Southampton Central station. I lived with my parents in Haywards Heath in Sussex. It was quite a short trip down to Brighton where I caught the through train to Exeter, which of course called at Southampton Central. Sometimes this train was steam hauled usually by 34013 “Okehampton” West Country class. I was lucky enough to get a run behind this loco on one occasion. Other times the train was diesel hauled by a Crompton Type 3 (Class 33) D65xx. On one of my trips I was standing on the platform at Brighton admiring the Crompton diesel loco. The driver called out to me “Do you want a cab ride, sonny”. Of course I jumped at the opportunity as I had never had a cab ride before. The driver said he could’nt do it from Brighton as there were to many inspectors around, but if I came to him at Worthing Central I could have a short cab ride from there to Chichester. So I duly got out at Worthing Central and got my cab ride to Chichester. As we approached Arundel Junction the driver asked me “how fast do you think we are going”, putting his hand over the loco speedometer so I could’nt see it. I replied around 50 mph. It turned out we were actually doing 65 mph. So I learned that you lose the impression of speed when you are high up in the cab of a diesel loco.
Southampton Central was always a good place to go trainspotting & take pictures. Nearly all trains were steam hauled at this time with the expresses from London (Waterloo) to Bournemouth & Weymouth being hauled by Merchant Navy or West Country/Battle of Britain class locos. Occasionally a GWR Hall or Grange class loco would appear on an inter-regional express. The impressive semaphore signal gantry at the west end of the station provided a good frame for steam locomotive pictures. I have fond memories of visits here as it was the first place I took any meaningful pictures of steam trains.
Another place I ventured to in my school holidays was Reading. It was quite an interesting journey from Haywards Heath via Redhill & Guildford. The train from Redhill to Reading via Guildford was usually steam hauled, either by an SR “N” or “U” class loco, or by a BR Standard 2-6-4T loco.
There was hardly any steam through Reading at this time. The expresses from London (Paddington) to Bristol, South Wales & the West Country were now hauled by the new “Western” or “Warship” class diesel hydraulics. There was also the new South Wales Pullman” with its posh blue & white coaches. It was quite interesting for me as I had never seen any of these classes before. Unfortunately my camera had some limitations when attempting to take pictures of trains moving at speed. Up to now I had nearly always used it to take pictures of trains at rest. This resulted in some “motion blurr” when attempting to take a picture of the “South Wales Pullman” which did’nt stop at Reading. Still this was all part of my learning experience when taking pictures of trains.
In August my parents moved house to the small country village of Balcombe. This was great for me because we only lived about 5 minutes walk from the railway station, which is on the London to Brighton main line. I could now look out of the back bedroom window and see the trains although somewhat obscured by trees. I soon discovered a railway bridge about a quarter of a mile away where I could get good pictures of trains. There were quite a variety of steam trains, mainly freight & vans. The freights were usually powered by SR “U” or “N” class locos. The evening van train from Brighton however was hauled by a West Country or Battle of Britain class loco. As it passed Balcombe at around 10.10 pm. it was too dark to get a picture as I had no flash on the camera. However it became a regular “must see” most evenings and an excuse to go down to the railway station for the last dog walk of the day. Another interesting working was the Glasgow to Newhaven Harbour car sleeper train. This passed Balcombe at around 6.30 am. hauled by a Stanier 4-6-0 Black 5. Again it was difficult to get a picture at that hour of the morning due to poor light, but I did manage it on a few occasions, although the pictures are not the best quality. It was a great incentive to get up early and take my dog for a walk to the nearest railway bridge.
