A Tale of Two Water Towers
A Tale of Two Water Towers, A Tale of Two Stations, A Tale of Two Rivers It takes less than an hour to walk from Kemble station to the source of the River Thames: it’s usually dry at the spring-source, although I have seen bubbles surface from the depths below...
Steam Rail Motors and Chalford
Steam Rail Motors and Chalford I first visited Chalford on the train in the summer of 1960. The locomotive was a 1400 class tank engine; 1463 from memory. I thought that a quaint engine at the time but not as quaint as the Art Deco diesel railcars awaiting the...
200th Anniversary of the Railways
The 200th Anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway But also, the 200th Anniversary of the proposed Stroud and Severn Railroad And the 190th Anniversary of the Prospectus for the C & GWUR The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway There are national...
Railway Life Part Four
Railway Life Part Four A spring time step in his walk to work, On past the gas works, the pub and the chip shop, A wriggle of his hips as he walks past the football pitch, With egg and bacon for a fry-up on the shovel; But back in the house, she sits fretting. Her...
Railway Life Part Three
Railway Life Part Three It’s full steam ahead – Until, freezing in the cab, paper in his boots, He gets stuck in a wind-whistling loop, Out here in some unsheltered, open landscape; Or, shovelling six tons of coal Choking in some seeming endless tunnel, On a...
Railway Life Part Two
Railway Life Part Two But down at the running shed: All is different! Hustle, bustle and red-hot tumult: Fill the tender! Water the tank! Empty the firebox! (Cough on the dust, choke on the fumes, burn your hands.) Smash the clinker! Draw the firebar! Sweep the pit!...