Eddie Holden
My earliest railway-related memory was of a train journey from Devon to visit my grandparents, who lived in the Wirral. We were at Crewe station and my mother bought me a Kiora. I remember steam train whistles, dappled light and hissing from a loose steam heat connection. The year was 1966 and I was hooked.
We lived in Plympton and Dad would take me to Tavistock Junction to watch the big diesel hydraulics thunder through, gathering pace for the long slog up Hemmerdon. At the age of four, we moved to Teignmouth, where I have been ever since. It is impossible to grow up in this town without appreciating the railway.
We have one of the nation’s most awesome railway constructions on our doorstep, that being Brunel’s sea wall. In the summer, trains would line up, bringing thousands of tourists to town and in the winter it would protect us from the fiercest of storms. Serious gradients, bridges, viaducts, lower quadrant signals, coastal railways and great depots at Laira and Newton Abbot – not to mention hydraulics – were just some of the things that made Devon such a great place to grow up.
My trainspotting career really got started in ’72. I was 10 and would spend long, hot summer days trainspotting on Teignmouth station, sitting beneath the signal box listening to the bells and the clank of the levers. The fleet of Class 52s were still complete. There were plenty of Hymeks around.
Class 25s worked the local stoppers, while 45s and 47s worked the inter-regionals. A visit to Exeter would treat you to 33s on the Waterloos or a Hastings unit on the SO Brighton service. The summers were long and hot and life was good. With each passing year, I persuaded my mum to let me go further afield on trainspotting trips with friends – Laira at first, then Bath Road, Severn Tunnel Junction, Canton and then London.
I remember my first visit to Paddington – oh my, it was magnificent: Westerns, 31s and 47s. I remember my first visit to King’s Cross as if it were yesterday. I was so excited I thought my heart would burst through my chest. Myself and three friends had hyped up the whole day until we were at fever pitch, riding to London behind Western Trooper.
As I ran onto the concourse, there she was – my first Deltic, 9004 Queen’s Own Highlander. She was magnificent. Trainspotting trips extended over the whole country, with my first All Line Rail Rover in 1977. A couple more rovers followed, which is where I evolved from just number crunching into haulage bashing – this somehow seemed like a promotion. I had become a big Class 50 fan since their arrival in my neck of the woods and chasing 50s for haulage became a way of life from ’78 to ’82.
I remember buying my two-week All Line Rail Rover in August ’79, which turned out to be an epic trip. With my copy of 1H79 and my massive All Line timetable in my Adidas bag, my friend and I set off. The trip included 40113 to Stranraer from Carlisle and back to Preston, 40168 on the Kyle line, 20197 nose-first paired with 40058 on an Inverness to Edinburgh service, five pairs of 20s on the August Bank Holiday to and from Skegness, eleven different Class 40s on a summer Saturday on the North Wales coastline, 03179 at Norwich and twelve different Deltics – it was endless.
All through this, my camera came with me, casually recording the proceedings, but life slowly changed and the responsibilities that force us to become adults increased. Relationships came and went. A fulfilling career in the fire service took up much time – children, marriage, divorce, mortgages – but through it all I always had one eye on the railway scene. From 1990 to ’95, I got involved with video and recorded the last years of the 50s, eventually working for Transport Video Publishing. I made several railway video documentaries of my own under the dubious name of Sunset Videos.
During my career in the fire service, I would engineer visits to railway establishments under the pretext of training or risk visits – training at Laira, Hither Green, Tonbridge West Yard, visits inside the Royal Albert Bridge and simulated rail crashes at the Fire Service Training College. With retirement came the chance to travel, tracking down the remaining authentic operational steam locomotives in China, India and Bosnia. Photography had become more important to me and I added a drone to my camera bag. I discovered Flickr thanks to my old chum Richie B, which proved to be a great outlet to share my pictures. This led to a meeting in 2019 with the 1Z10 guys and the rest is history – being part of 1Z10 has given me the opportunity to pursue my hobby alongside friends, to combine socialising with a day’s photography, to share a beer and a meal whilst reflecting on the day’s events. It has become a very important part of my life.
