On Track - a Gricer's Tales
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    • 1991-1999 >
      • 1991
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      • 1993 >
        • April 1993 - Belgium & Luxembourg
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        • May 1995 - The Netherlands
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        • May 1996 - Belgium and the Netherlands
        • July-August 1996 - Belgium
        • August 1996 - Anniversary tour
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        • May 1997 - Netherlands and Germany
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        • January 1998 - Germany
        • February 1998 - Belgium
        • April 1998 - Belgium and Germany
        • April 1998 - Netherlands, Belgium & Germany
        • August 1998 - Germany, Poland, Czech Republic
        • December 1998 - Germany
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        • January 1999 - Germany
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        • February 2000 - Germany
        • March 2000 - Germany
        • April 2000 - France
        • April 2000 - Germany
        • May 2000 - Germany
        • August 2000 - Germany, Czech Republic
        • September 2000 - Belgium
        • September 2000 - Belgium and Germany
      • 2001 >
        • January 2001 - Germany
        • February 2001 - Northern Ireland
        • March 2001 - Germany
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        • May 2001 - Germany, Denmark and Sweden
        • May 2001 - Netherlands and Germany
        • October 2001 - Germany
        • December 2001 - Germany
      • 2002 >
        • February 2002 - Germany
        • March 2002 - Germany
        • April 2002 - Germany
        • August 2002 - Czech Republic
        • September 2002 - Netherlands
        • October 2002 - Germany
        • November 2002 - Germany (1)
        • November 2002 - Germany (2)
      • 2003 >
        • January 2003 - Germany
        • April 2003 - France
        • May 2003 - Germany
        • June 2003 - Czech Republic and Slovakia
        • October 2003 - Czech Republic
        • December 2003 - Germany
      • 2004 >
        • March 2004 - Germany
        • April 2004 - Various countries
        • May 2004 - Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary
        • August 2004 - Germany, Switzerland, Austria
        • October 2004 - Germany
      • 2005 >
        • April 2005 - Germany, Czech Republic
        • June 2005 - Portugal
        • August 2005 - Belgium and Germany
        • October 2005 - Germany and Czech Republic
      • 2006 >
        • January 2006 - Germany
        • March 2006 - Germany
        • May 2006 - Ireland
        • July 2006 - Germany
        • August 2006 - Germany
        • September 2006 - Czech Republic and Slovakia
      • 2007 >
        • February 2007 - Czech Republic
        • May 2007 - Czech Republic
        • June 2007 - Germany and France
        • October 2007 - Czech Republic and borders
        • October/November 2007 - Czech Republic
      • 2008 >
        • April 2008 - Czech Republic
        • April 2008 - Germany
        • July 2008 - Czech Republic, Poland
        • August 2008 - Austria (1)
        • August 2008 - Austria (2)
        • December 2008 - Czech Republic
        • December 2008 - Austria
      • 2009 >
        • July 2009 - Czech Republic, Slovakia
        • August 2009 - Austria
        • September 2009 - Slovakia
        • November 2009 - Austria
    • 2010-present >
      • 2010 >
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        • July 2010 - Germany, Belgium, Netherlands
        • July 2010 - Austria
      • 2011 >
        • April 2011 - Austria
        • June 2011 - Germany and 6 others
        • October 2011 - Germany
      • 2012 >
        • April 2012 - Belgium and Germany
        • May 2012 - Germany
        • July 2012 - Germany
        • October 2012 - Germany
      • 2013 >
        • March 2013 - Czech Republic
        • April 2013 - Germany
        • August 2013 - Germany
      • 2014 >
        • May 2014 - Germany
        • July 2014 - Germany
      • 2015 >
        • April 2015 - Germany, Czech Republic
        • June 2015 - Slovakia, Czech Republic
      • 2016 >
        • March 2016 - Slovakia
        • April 2016 - Slovakia
        • June 2016 - Netherlands plus 5
        • November 2016 - Germany, Poland
      • 2017 >
        • March 2017 - Germany, Poland
        • July 2017 - Czech Republic and Poland
        • July 2017 - Poland and Slovakia
      • 2018 >
        • August 2018 - the best laid plans of mice and men
      • 2019 >
        • July 2019 - Interrail part 1
        • August 2019 - Interrail part 2
      • 2022 >
        • June 2022 - Interrail
        • September 2022 - Belgium
  • Contact

How it all began - Hornby-Dublo, BR(WR) and railtours

It all started when I was about two years old, with the traditional train set (Hornby Dublo 3-rail) and the Thomas the Tank Engine books. Then I was taken to Wolverhampton Low Level to meet various people from their trains and/or see them off. Things got worse. The train set expanded. The visits to Low Level were ever more exciting. At school there was talk of trainspotting (this was the 1950s, it was fashionable then). More visits to Wolverhampton Low Level - seen from a viewpoint nearly six decades on, everything at Low Level was clean and on time, and had a copper capped chimney. Possibly this viewpoint is equipped with rose-tinted (or perhaps GWR locomotive green-tinted) spectacles. Saturday trips to Stafford, where if you were lucky you got there in time for the up 'Ulster Express'. Visits to Tamworth, punctuated by shouts of 'Semi on the main'. Visits to Crewe Works, where if you were really lucky you saw a Main Line Diesel (and if you were even luckier, you didn't). Memorably, a visit to Stafford Road shed and a ride to Oxley on 4912 (thanks, Dad).

Then off to school down south where the best train of the day was the 1712 to Bournemouth with a Banbury or Oxford 'Modified Hall', sure footed and noisy unlike the Bulleid Pacifics handling most of the faster passenger traffic. Here the rot set in. I bought a set of timetables each year and not long before I left school I thought it would be interesting to mark the timetable map with the lines I had travelled on (by now it included Hayling Island - thanks to the late John Manisty - Ventnor, Bromyard, Ruabon to Barmouth, Gloucester to Hereford, ...). Of course, I soon noticed that there were one or two lines where the map in the timetable showed a service but it was a bit difficult to find the trains in the timetable. For some peculiar reason I remember the first one I noticed - Maindee East Junction to Maindee North Junction. Unfortunately I hadn't seen the light yet and I carried on charging about on main/well known lines. Like the GC from Marylebone to Rugby, the Somerset & Dorset, the Waverley Route - well, perhaps a glimmer.

In 1967 I went to university and there I fell into seriously bad company. Gricers. Gricers? People whose ambition was to travel over every possible metre of track. In those days one's horizons tended to end at the Channel and besides, I still hadn't done large swathes of the UK. The last nail in the coffin of sanity was sharpened by reading one of the H.W.Paar books about the Forest of Dean in the college library when I was supposed to be revising. In May 1969 the Branch Line Society advertised a railtour to Parkend, amongst other places, and that was it. Railtours filled the next 20 years, though towards the end they were thinning out and brake van trips were becoming a thing of the past. Llanharry, Newcastle Emlyn, Yarmouth Quay, Ardingly, Leiston, Sandside, the Blyth and Tyne, Fraserburgh, Crianlarich Lower, Burghead, Beckermet, Trafford Park, Pensnett, Radstock, Meledor Mill, you name it.

And then came Europe ...

By the end of the 1980s I'd spent a great deal of time rushing about the UK travelling on every British Rail line that I could. Quite successfully - most of what I had left hardly qualified as a line, being mostly sidings, industrial lines, private connections and things of that sort. There are many gricers who will pursue these things in minute detail (and sometimes minute size, down to anything that can be ridden on), but that's not my preferred focus.

Although this was all great fun (strange what motivates people, but there you go), the well eventually began to dry out and you got fed up with paying forty or fifty quid to do the Wibblewick Coal Concentration Depot Up Down Relief Crossover. About the same time my children were growing up fast, and pressure to go abroad was increasing. In 1988 we ventured to France, my first non-business trip (and only the second of any sort) for about 18 years. Everybody was very friendly. The food was much better than at home. I enjoyed it. I saw some railways...

It took some time to get my head round all this. One or two weekend trips to France were undertaken. In 1991 my wife and I ventured to Brugge. I had this idea that Belgian beer wasn't all bad. The first one I tried was Westmalle Tripel. Case proved. - see other pages (when I get round to doing them)... Then we went to Rotterdam. We travelled on a train to Amsterdam. Then we went to Germany. We looked at the Köln-Trier line. It all looked rather interesting. In 1991 I decided to dip a toe into the (Euro)gricing waters and had an interesting 4-day bash in France, the obvious choice as it's the nearest and uses the only language of which I have any knowledge at all. That, I suppose, set the scene - although from that day to this I've only done a couple of preserved lines, some cross border lines from neighbouring countries, and one railtour in France.

In 1992 a chance arose for another little jaunt. I rang a friend and asked if the Harz system was still steam. Yes, he said, and don't forget about Bad Doberan, Radeburg, Zittau, etc., etc. I went (by car, and just to take photographs, you understand). Foolishly, I had a ride from Bad Doberan to
Kühlungsborn and back on a nice summer evening. I made it worse by doing the Zittau lines, and Radeburg to Moritzburg. The next year I went back to ride on the narrow gauge lines. Instead of using a car I got an Interrail, did everything by train, went to Prague, went to Wolzstyn (Poland).

From there on I was doomed (amazingly, that friend is still a friend. I suppose in his defence I have to say he can't have known what he was starting!). The BLS ran a trip in Luxembourg. ADL were running trips in Belgium. Branch line bashing was just like it used to be. Thousands of kilometres of main lines were begging to be griced. Branch lines were closing, especially in eastern Germany. And that was how my European travels began.

Nearly thirty years later I've turned from gricer to Eurogricer (though still interested in UK railways) and I've often been accompanied on my travels by my extraordinarily patient wife, sometimes referred to in the notes as 'Mrs EG'. When we first met over half a century ago, and even on that French holiday in 1988, she cannot possibly have realised what she was in for!

You'll find a list of trips on the index page here, or just pick from the 'The Tales' menu at the top of the page.



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  • Home
  • The Tales
    • The Tales - Index
    • How it all began
    • 1991-1999 >
      • 1991
      • 1992
      • 1993 >
        • April 1993 - Belgium & Luxembourg
        • September 1993 - Germany & Poland
      • 1994
      • 1995 >
        • May 1995 - The Netherlands
        • August 1995 - Belgium
        • October 1995 - Belgium
        • November 1995 - Belgium
      • 1996 >
        • May 1996 - Belgium and the Netherlands
        • July-August 1996 - Belgium
        • August 1996 - Anniversary tour
        • September 1996 - Netherlands and Belgium
      • 1997 >
        • May 1997 - Netherlands and Germany
        • July 1997 - Germany
      • 1998 >
        • January 1998 - Germany
        • February 1998 - Belgium
        • April 1998 - Belgium and Germany
        • April 1998 - Netherlands, Belgium & Germany
        • August 1998 - Germany, Poland, Czech Republic
        • December 1998 - Germany
      • 1999 >
        • January 1999 - Germany
        • February 1999 - Belgium
        • April 1999 - Germany, Czech Republic, Poland
        • June 1999 - Belgium, Germany
        • July 1999 - Germany
        • December 1999 - Germany
    • 2000-2009 >
      • 2000 >
        • February 2000 - Germany
        • March 2000 - Germany
        • April 2000 - France
        • April 2000 - Germany
        • May 2000 - Germany
        • August 2000 - Germany, Czech Republic
        • September 2000 - Belgium
        • September 2000 - Belgium and Germany
      • 2001 >
        • January 2001 - Germany
        • February 2001 - Northern Ireland
        • March 2001 - Germany
        • April 2001 - Germany
        • May 2001 - Germany, Denmark and Sweden
        • May 2001 - Netherlands and Germany
        • October 2001 - Germany
        • December 2001 - Germany
      • 2002 >
        • February 2002 - Germany
        • March 2002 - Germany
        • April 2002 - Germany
        • August 2002 - Czech Republic
        • September 2002 - Netherlands
        • October 2002 - Germany
        • November 2002 - Germany (1)
        • November 2002 - Germany (2)
      • 2003 >
        • January 2003 - Germany
        • April 2003 - France
        • May 2003 - Germany
        • June 2003 - Czech Republic and Slovakia
        • October 2003 - Czech Republic
        • December 2003 - Germany
      • 2004 >
        • March 2004 - Germany
        • April 2004 - Various countries
        • May 2004 - Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary
        • August 2004 - Germany, Switzerland, Austria
        • October 2004 - Germany
      • 2005 >
        • April 2005 - Germany, Czech Republic
        • June 2005 - Portugal
        • August 2005 - Belgium and Germany
        • October 2005 - Germany and Czech Republic
      • 2006 >
        • January 2006 - Germany
        • March 2006 - Germany
        • May 2006 - Ireland
        • July 2006 - Germany
        • August 2006 - Germany
        • September 2006 - Czech Republic and Slovakia
      • 2007 >
        • February 2007 - Czech Republic
        • May 2007 - Czech Republic
        • June 2007 - Germany and France
        • October 2007 - Czech Republic and borders
        • October/November 2007 - Czech Republic
      • 2008 >
        • April 2008 - Czech Republic
        • April 2008 - Germany
        • July 2008 - Czech Republic, Poland
        • August 2008 - Austria (1)
        • August 2008 - Austria (2)
        • December 2008 - Czech Republic
        • December 2008 - Austria
      • 2009 >
        • July 2009 - Czech Republic, Slovakia
        • August 2009 - Austria
        • September 2009 - Slovakia
        • November 2009 - Austria
    • 2010-present >
      • 2010 >
        • April 2010 - Germany
        • July 2010 - Germany, Belgium, Netherlands
        • July 2010 - Austria
      • 2011 >
        • April 2011 - Austria
        • June 2011 - Germany and 6 others
        • October 2011 - Germany
      • 2012 >
        • April 2012 - Belgium and Germany
        • May 2012 - Germany
        • July 2012 - Germany
        • October 2012 - Germany
      • 2013 >
        • March 2013 - Czech Republic
        • April 2013 - Germany
        • August 2013 - Germany
      • 2014 >
        • May 2014 - Germany
        • July 2014 - Germany
      • 2015 >
        • April 2015 - Germany, Czech Republic
        • June 2015 - Slovakia, Czech Republic
      • 2016 >
        • March 2016 - Slovakia
        • April 2016 - Slovakia
        • June 2016 - Netherlands plus 5
        • November 2016 - Germany, Poland
      • 2017 >
        • March 2017 - Germany, Poland
        • July 2017 - Czech Republic and Poland
        • July 2017 - Poland and Slovakia
      • 2018 >
        • August 2018 - the best laid plans of mice and men
      • 2019 >
        • July 2019 - Interrail part 1
        • August 2019 - Interrail part 2
      • 2022 >
        • June 2022 - Interrail
        • September 2022 - Belgium
  • Contact