BORN in 1971 in Buxton, Derbyshire, and then living in Whaley Bridge, to the south of Manchester, Mark recalls being taken to the nearby railway line at a very young age by his paternal grandparents.
“I think it was when I was about two, and they told me that it grew up from there, really,” he says. “I also used to visit my maternal grandparents in South Wales, travelling by train, and my grandfather wouldn’t even allow me to step foot in the house until I’d recited every station from Cardiff Central to Ystrad Rhondda in the correct order.”
Station rides
When Mark was about two-and-a-half, the family relocated to Marlow in the Thames Valley, an area he has come to know well and has spent most of his life. “Once I was old enough to be trusted to leave the house – I was probably about eight, I’d jump on my bike and pop down to the station. Marlow station wasn’t very exciting because the same train bounced in and out all day long, but soon I got talking to the train crews.”
With only a small pool of drivers and guards based at Slough working on the line, it wasn’t long before the crews began giving Mark free rides to Bourne End and back in the evening rush hour, when the shuttle service saw two trains operating. “Riding on the train led to me being asked to dispatch the train,” he says. “The guard used to go through and do the tickets and say, ‘We’re due off at 17.41, Mark, just give two on the buzzer at 17.41.’ I was about 10, 11, 12 – and that’s what I used to do.”
The visit on Ferbruary 8, 1986, of No. 50012 Benbow allowing Mark's to return to his birth place of Buxton on Hertfordshire Rail Tours 'Derbyshire Dingle' was an opportunity too good to miss. Here the Class 50 eases away towards Manchester, the old line to Ashbourne is on the
left.
LES NIXON
Mark Hopwood, GWRs managing director.
JACK BOSKETT
In those days, services from Maidenhead to Marlow required the use of a ground frame at Bourne End to change the points and the collection of a token and staff. “Very often the guards would expect me to either do it under their supervision, or one or two of them used to just send me down to do it on my own,” Mark recalls. It simply wouldn’t happen today.
Mark’s grandmother outlived his grandfather, and she moved into sheltered housing in Llandaf, to the north of Cardiff. Not only was this right next to the railway line, but it was only a few minutes’ walk from Llandaf station and a path that led to a small signal box. “No one ever locked the gate, so I opened it one day and went down.”
Class 104 DMUs on the Manchester-Buxton route were some of the first trains Mark encountered before the family relocated to the Thames Valley. This view at Buxton station was taken on July 27, 1976.
A PRICE/COLOUR RAIL
He was spotted by the signalman, and invited to climb the wooden steps and take a look inside. This became a regular event.