Tony Cunnane's Early Years

The position of our house at the railway end of Cotton Street in Wakefield made it ideal for train spotting. It is difficult for people today to understand why train spotting was such a common and absorbing pastime for young lads in the 1940s. In the 21st Century, train spotting seems to be primarily a hobby of men of a certain age who congregate with cameras, note books and other paraphernalia, at the ends of mainline railway stations. These men, or as they are often rudely called ‘anoraks’, usually seem to have their own refreshments with them in their bags and they can be seen comparing notes and digital images as they await the next arrival. In 2008, one of the most likely stations in Yorkshire to see them is Doncaster on the East Coast Main Line. No-one aged more than about 14 engaged in train spotting in the 1940s because most males were either at work or away fighting the war or had become more interested in girls.

The fact is that there was very little to occupy youngsters during the war years and there is no doubt that the steam locomotives of the age were magnificent examples of British engineering prowess. Furthermore, train spotting was not often done at railway stations. One had to buy platform tickets at a penny a time in those days to gain access and pocket money was always in very short supply. In stations, the trains were inevitably either at a standstill or travelling very slowly and there was nothing very exciting in that! On the rare occasions when I went onto the platforms at Wakefield’s Westgate and Kirkgate stations was when I was seeking an invitation from a driver to climb onto his footplate for a quick look around while the fireman was outside oiling the locomotive’s mechanism or supervising the re-watering of the tender. Now that was exciting!

Most of the spotting done by my friends and me was at out-of-town locations. We rarely seemed to stay in one spot for more than an hour and in between trains there was always something else to do, such as kicking a ball around or having a friendly wrestle, as boys have probably done since time immemorial. One of my favourite places was just south of Walton Station on the LMS Midland route from Sheffield to Leeds. We knew when trains were expected because we could see signals in both directions. A ‘double up’ usually meant that an express was imminent; a single ‘up’ usually indicated a freight train or a local train which was far less exciting. At the point where we parked our cycles there was a long wooden bench seat, a wide grass verge, and a footbridge over the tracks. We watched long distance expresses roar by, wondering at the destination boards affixed above the windows of the coaches – London St Pancras, Glasgow St Enoch, Carlisle, Inverness, Liverpool, Newcastle. In those days we lads could accurately pinpoint all those famous cities on a map of Great Britain, which is more than many youngsters of today can do.

The bench seat has fallen apart but, bizarrely, the timbers are still there scattered around. The grass verge is now overgrown with some weeds several feet high after. When I used to train spot there, the verges were kept neat and tidy by railway workers. The footbridge is now dilapidated and is supposed to be sealed off at either end but it is still possible to climb the rickety steps and walk across. Walton station was closed in the early 1960s as part of the Beeching cuts. I imagine the railway tracks were lifted soon afterwards, but 40 years on it is still possible to make out where they lay and they are clearly marked on Ordnance Survey Landranger Map 111.

My interest in train spotting came to an end when we moved to Leeds in 1948. How I wish, though, that I had kept my Ian Allan ABC books. I never got a ride on a train until 1946 when our family went on a day trip to Blackpool - click here to go to that.

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We rarely seemed to stay in one spot for more than an hour and in between trains there was always something else to do, such as kicking a ball around or having a friendly wrestle, as boys have probably done since time immemorial.

The end of Cotton Street photographed in 2008. Our house was set back behind the others on the left. Click on the image above to download a larger version in a new window.

Here is a link to a current map from Google Maps centred on the camera viewpoint in the image above.