These blogs will feature articles that we have received from owners who have kindly sent their stories in to us for publication. They are stories of real people sharing their life experiences and of course the stories of their cars.
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Trains, Boats and Planes

CDR

County Donegal Railways Railcar No.10, now resplendent in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra, along with its dozen stable mates in the CDR fleet, was a big part of my life for the last four years or so of its time in service. It mostly ran on the Strabane – Stranorlar – Donegal Town – Ballyshannon line, which with the rest of the CDR network closed in early 1960. Many Fridays I’d get these trains from Strabane to Liscooly (1s/0d Return) to spend the weekend on the Denniston farm, which was a mile from the little station between Castlefin and Killygordon, returning on the first train Monday morning for school. Latterly I’d take the bike (2d Return), which went in the goods van or open wagons that these railcars hauled. I can only remember two trips on the train through Barnesmore Gap, as illustrated in this lovely painting by Debra Wenlock. One was a Sunday School Outing to Rossnowlagh and the other was to the caravan, also at Rossnowlagh. I have no idea why my mother, the two younger Dennistons and myself went in the train, because I’m sure we were met by my father in the car at the Rossnowlagh Halt, I just have a memory of doing it.

Trident

My sister presented my parents with their first granchild in early 1965 and we three flew out to Germany to see him. Admittedly I wasn’t that excited about being an uncle because a first flight was way more significant. We flew from Belfast to Heathrow in a turbo-prop Vickers Viscount and on to Dusseldorf in a larger Vickers Vanguard. The Viscount had huge oval windows that gave a brilliant view of the world below. That was exciting enough, but on the return Dusseldorf – Heathrow flight I couldn’t believe it when we were boarded on to one of the new Trident jets that had only been in service about six months. It was so smooth and quiet compared to the other two and every time the engine note changed, the captain or co-pilot would come on the tannoy to re-assure us and explain the changes.

Ford Taunus

Sister had a Ford Taunus (German Cortina) and was teaching in a Forces School in the small town of Hilden, which was roughly in the middle of a triangle of the cities of Cologne, Dusseldorf and Wuppertal. I’m told we had a day out in Dusseldorf (Don’t remember), but I do remember a boat trip up the Rhine to Cologne and the Cathedral with its monumental twin spires. Another day we went to Wuppertal and had a ride on its famous monorail that mainly runs along above the river (Suspect Rachel wouldn’t be too keen on this!!). It opened in 1901 and is still in service today, although much modernised. The autobahns were a real eye-opener, given that the whole of the M1 in Northern Ireland was yet to be opened and we’d only been on the short Lisburn – Belfast stretch once by this time. Three and four lanes wide, the most amazing sight were 10-wheeler trucks and trailers, some towing two 10-wheeler trailers, thundering along the outer lanes at ungoverned speeds. The other abiding memory was the food when we ate out. I had venison for the first time and still do today, but the portions were enormous even for a growing lad. Then there were the dessert trolleys – they were 5-storey mobile storage racks about six foot long with every conceivable, edible heart attack you could imagine with about a pint of whipped cream dolloped on top of your serving.

Monorail

I was 17 before I made my first ferry trip across the Irish Sea and have long lost count of how many I’ve done up to now. You’ll hear about at least one of them in a few weeks, on here. This first one was a school ‘educational’ trip to London and started with my first train journey from Derry to Belfast via Coleraine, although I’d had a couple on the old GNR line (Illustrated here in another Debra Wenlock painting) via Portadown, before it closed. We then took the overnight ferry to Liverpool but we pupils didn’t have cabins and just slept in the public areas, although I recall a couple of boys spending most of the night hanging over the outside rail being sick!!. What was quite exciting was being served a full breakfast and elevenses on the train down to London. Never had a meal on a train before or since. Mixed memories include the boys having to go to Lords to a cricket match while the girls got to go in to London shopping, including Hamleys. We took in a Ken Dodd Show at the London Palladium that was absolutely hilarious and another evening went to see the new James Bond “You Only Live Twice” at the Odeon Leicester Square. I have no recollection now of the trip back, probably because I didn’t want to come home, having seen “the bright lights

GNR

NO!! I never flew nor flew in a helicopter, this is a bit of an anecdote departure here although it does involve a vehicle with an engine, the Police Station and the Fire Brigade that I recalled a couple of weeks ago. As ‘The Troubles’ escalated into the ’70s the Police Station would increasingly become a target. In January 1974 a couple of Provisional IRA activists attempted a Dam Busters type attack on the Police Station, trying to lob milk churn bombs in the front door. They missed by quite a way, one landed in Coutrai Public Park behind the Station, another landing in the garden of a house that backed on to the Park. Thankfully they didn’t explode and nobody was injured. It was only when I got home later in the day that I discovered what had happened and the park was full of Army, Police and the Fire Brigade. It transpired that the helicopter had been hi-jacked by the perpetrators in Co.Donegal (I think from the Rosepenna Hotel at Downings) and was later found abandoned just back over the Border again. You have to admire their audacity, but their calculations obviously went awry somewhere to miss by such a wide margin.
I’m not sure what the helicopter is from this newspaper clipping of the time, sent to me by a facebook contact in Strabane, but it looks like a civilian version of the French Allouette.

Bomb Helicopter

Allouette

More from William, same time next week.