Brilliant video. Thank you.

What an interesting exchange between the 2 of you! I am just a little younger than Richard and can well remember the old Birmingham Corporation buses which ran to the boundary of the city, I used to have to walk the remaining part of the journey but in those days it was expected as no-one in my street had cars. I have to say that I found your conversation most enlightening and inspiring.

Thanks Richard and Roger for a facinating look back on transport history in a social context; something which so often gets forgotten. As a bid team member I just love the noting that Roger's bus scheduling skills were used to validate the resource plan!

What a wonderful episode, I could listen to Roger all day, insightful and fascinating

So much of your dads early memories of railways coincide with my memories. I come from a railway family and I still have my grandfathers birth certificate showing my great grandfather was stationmaster at Lambley on the Haltwhistle to Alston Branch in 1896 and my grandfather was Staionmaster at Bolton Abbey in the 1920's and Dad had 42 years railway service finishing up in the control office at Leeds City and in 1955 I joined Westinghouse Brake and Signal Co as a Technical Assistant Trainee at York Way in Kings Cross which brought me to onsite works on the WCML at Crewe/Stafford/Wolverhampton/Walsall and Birmingham New St where I worked for 10years and although I left after that period I still keep a keen interest in the railway scene. I am a year or two older than your Dad and I first saw 10000 at Preston brand new at the end of 1947 but it is my memories of steam that are the most precious to me. And thanks for Green Signals, such a welcome contrast from the usual general media rubbish we see today.

Thanks to both of you for a great show. I am of the same vintage as Bowker senior and his reminiscences mirrored mine as my mother prepared lunches for my father (a teacher) and me as we set off on runabout tickets to explore the railways of Centra Scotland, the Borders, Fife and Ayrshire during the summer holidays.

Excellent interview Richard. The story about the Derby Lightweight First Class and the Guard had me in stitches 😂. That alone is worth a SuperThanks.

What a stunning and insightful trip down memory lane. Thank you ever so much Roger and Richard for this Green Signals Christmas treat! I wish you and your family a Happy New Year

THANKS Richard for the chat with your Dad what a Mam THANKS again Richard

Thanks

What a fabulous interview, and a great way to record your father’s life and memories. Make the most of having him with you and willing to keep those things alive. I wish him a long and healthy future. So many of us wish we’d sat with our fathers, grandfathers etc, and written or recorded the things they’d done in their lives that go unrecorded and are lost when they pass.

Regarding Rome electric busses as below go to 20, Via Normontana Rome on Google maps and see the GRP guides for the collector poles on the overhead cables which power the electric buses away from the centre.

Thanks to both for going into so much detail. Whatever outline that you drafted Richard was time very well spent Should your father's quest for electric buses find him in Rome I hope that that City will still be running battery buses from the centre to the inner periphery on the east side where it raises its collector pole to an overhead cable and thence silently into the suburbs.

What a wonderful conversation. Thank you to both of you. Fascinating and very moving. What a joy to have a lifelong passion that is as fresh as this after 62 years of work. Just tremendous.

Thank you Richard and Roger, that was delightful, great to get those stories and memories on record.

A fabulous interview. Reminds me of conversations I had with my maternal and paternal grandfathers (who were both top link drivers on the west coast from Rugby) which I wish I could remember fully and also of conversations I should have had with my father (50 years man and boy in Rugby Steam and Diesel depots) before he died. Thank you so much. Please keep up the good work.

Richard, your father and I are of an age and his reminiscence of the Liverpool Overhead railway brought back memories when I went to Liverpool with my Mum and saw the railway on our way to see an aunt back off to Canada on the "Empress of Canada." I also remember the Runabout tickets when we used to travel from home in Blackpool to the Lakeside line and beyond. Happy memories! Thanks for that.

Thank you for this interview, I was fascinated listening to Mr Bowker snr . The whole interview brought back memories of Sunday trips with my dad to one of the main London terminals to watch the steam trains, it in particular reminded me of standing with my father at the end of a platform at Paddington and watching a castle class thunder out with a heavy West Country train. We need a lot more people like your farther working in transport today to sort it out.

Thank you Richard for a fantastic interview with your Dad. I was taken back to my childhood memories. We lived in Southport and regularly used to travel to visit my mother’s parents on the Wirral traveling on the electric train to Seaforth and Litherland , changing there onto the overhead and travelling to the Pier Head where we would either catch the ferry or the “Underground “ to Hamleton Square in Birkenhead where we would then catch the bus (Crosville) out to Heswall. How we managed to do all that there and back in a day I have no idea ! On one of our trips on the Overlhead we saw the “Empress of Canada”, it had been on fire and had capsized in the dock,all you could see was a great big rusting upturned hull ! A trip to Liverpool in those days was a magical experience the trams, the overhead railway, absolutely brilliant! It led to me making a 45 foot long model of Liverpool Lime Street, but that’s another story! Thanks once again for introducing your Dad, he was fascinating to listen to a what a gentleman. Regards, John Holden.

You are very lucky to have a role model Dad.

Thanks

Thank you so much Green Signals Roger and Richard this is a most fascinating enjoyable programme its wonderful to see all the historical locomotives and lines served and the good old days of the railway family because everybody looked after everyone and that's the way it was every day Along with the happy memories comes a certain sadness of lines and history lost that are ancestors took such dedication to create A definite case of axing in haste and repenting at leisure all the wonderful infrastructure and trams gone as well that would be so useful today I really would like to see more programmes like this one as the past is just as interesting as the current railways

Richard a visit to Hythe and Southampton with your Dad as the Red Funnel ferry services has stopped the train still runs special programme on this a waterside line and Fareham Gosport busway and Ferry to Portsmouth Harbour good programme

Hope the End of megabus Scottish City link in England a coach is preserved for the future

It's 200 years of the bus in Manchester and England in 2024

Big changes for buses and coaches and Railways comming under the new Labour government in England Labour needs advice on the commercial values of public transport Network in the public Transport

Keswick to penrith railway link bus needs promotion by First group plc Advati west coast partnership Trenitalia and stagecoach

Great programme your Dad did a lot for stagecoach Group

Thank you both so much for a fascinating talk. Wonderful to hear from someone so passionate about their subject. Particularly enjoyed the story of Liverpool Overhead Railway which I can just remember seeing passing under it on a tram from Pierhead in 1955 when I was 5. 👏

Absolutely engaging, I sat and watched twice and would love more people to do this type of talk before we lose wonderful people like Richard's father, totally absorbed, great way to end the year, thank you

I'm almost in tears listening to this history of life over the years and as a passenger growing up using Eastern National and other buses in East London.

Thank you so much for this, Richard and Mr. Bowker senior! There's so much that resonates with me here, being a Lancashire lad myself. A lifetime of fascinating stories, and completely absorbing just watching and listening! 👍

Thank you for sharing that with us. Fascinating and enjoyable . I’m sure there are more stories to tell!!

Great memories from your Dad Richard. I am also third generation railway.

Another response to Rogers comment about trolleybus. I have travelled on them in Salzburg in Austria. Highly recommended, and the Austrians know them as O bus. 97 seats and dozens more standing-is the way to shift people, and without diesel noise and fumes too. The UK has such a lot more to learn about public transport

Especial thanks Richard and your father for a fantastic and very absorbing programme. It really was a fascinating piece of work including all the video and image links. Really really impressed

02.00.... just finished listening / watching that fabulous Green Signals Special, whilst washing up / clearing up in the kitchen after our Boxing Day festivities! My work was mundane, but made so pleasurable by the treat of such an audio-visual transport extravaganza, brought to life by your father : thanks for all the hard work in putting this together. As a young Essex boy and Eastern National user of the 60s & 70s, it was fascinating to hear your father's detail of bus & crew scheduling.... and then use similar skills myself 30+ yrs later managing train crew depot rosters, working indirectly for Sir Brian Souter for South West Trains, when part of the Stagecoach Group; a small world! Keep the podcasts coming!

What a wonderful video , Thanks

My father joined the LMSR at the District Engineer's office at Castle Park in the early 40's and returned there post his Demob. The office moved to Preston with the creation of the larger Divisions replacing the LMS's Districts a couple of decades later. The office was to become part of the quaker-run Friends School with the railway stables to the rear, becoming their swimming baths as I recall. Long after Castle Park offices closed the Lune Road shops, devoid of the rail access seen in your photo with the Glasson Dock branch closed and Williamsons traffic long gone, continued for another decade or so with the steel erecting shops still serving the Division.

It's just so fascinating listening to dad. Loved his historical stories of railways & buses. What a fabulous career.

Thanks for all of your hard work, (including Steph) & the interesting content. Always a pleasure to listen to & hear the views of fellow pro rail supporters including professionals, past & present.

Gentlemen, I cannot begin to express how thoroughly entertaining and informative this has been. I would class this as archive material. My best Christmas present by far, but don't tell herself.

Thank you. That was wonderful, not just for the information revealed, but because of the delightful father-son interaction.

Loved this, I bet your family are very proud of the legacy you father and you will leave. Thank you.

Good to see your father again Richard. He was one of the many joys about working at Stagecoach Group.

Yellow cloth plus blue gives white.

Richard, thank you. I could happily listen to you and your Dad reminiscing….preferably with a glass of something in my hand!

What a fantastic interview, great stories and a very interesting life. I am four years older than your dad and I remember skipping school to go and see 10000 on its first trip from Manchester to St. Pancras, I believe it was Feb 1948. The loco was rushed out of Derby works in Dec 1947 so that it could keep the large LMS numerals on the side before it became British Railways on Jan 1st!!! From Richard W. Canada!

What a fantastic video, including all that old footage, which must have taken a lot of time to incorporate. And a wonderful set of recollections that will be a great legacy for you and your family. Thanks for sharing it with us