With a passion for both railways and football, Trevor Lambert recalls how in late August 1963, when aged just 16, he set off alone on a 19-day trip that would ultimately embrace no less than 90 different engine sheds and railway works locations.
When dawn broke in Parkstone, Dorset, on Tuesday, 20 August 1963 I was already awake and eager to embark on the trainspotting trip of a lifetime. What was it that triggered my interest in railways historically, and has done ever since?
As a five-year-old I lived in Broadstone and attended the local primary school. Broadstone station was adjacent to the end of the school playground from where we used to watch the many trains that passed through in those early 1950s days, the vast majority calling at the station. Broadstone was a major junction then, with four platforms and was on the route of the original London to Dorchester and Weymouth line – the ‘Castleman’s Corkscrew’, known for its proliferation of curves – between Brockenhurst and Hamworthy Junction, that avoided Bournemouth and Poole. Intersecting this line at Broadstone was the Somerset & Dorset Joint line between Bournemouth and Bath. Local services, in addition to those of the S&DJR route, primarily ran from Brockenhurst and Salisbury via Wimborne to Bournemouth. The motive power on the Brockenhurst trains was dominated by push-pull ‘M7’ 0-4-4 tanks engines, usually with two ancient coaches.
I was given my first Ian Allan ABC trainspotting book in 1955 – BR Southern Region – but it took quite a while before I realised that the numbers starting with 4, or even 5, were London Midland Region engines that did not feature in my book, although they still dominated the S&DJR trains! With a couple of friends, I started to venture to Bournemouth (Central), and even Salisbury, to spot more trains and pursue my new hobby. The family later moved to Parkstone, again close to the main line station, and that’s when my interest in trainspotting really took off – but I digress.
Moving forwards to that August Tuesday in 1963, my GCE-O level results the previous week had already guaranteed me a place in the sixth form at Poole Grammar School and my 16th birthday, four weeks past, convinced me into thinking that adulthood had arrived at last! The previous evening, I had packed into a small duffle bag all
