2 May 2025, ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’ by John Baxter.

John introduced himself with an old picture of the LNER station at Huntingdon where he first became interested in trains. The first locomotive that he remembered was Gresley A4 ‘Mallard’ so this was his favourite locomotive class. He went back to the station in 1977 to find that the station had changed from 4 tracks down to 2.

An early photo of Midsomer Norton, when the line had closed, showed a signal which was later stolen.  A local woman approached John asking him if he was anything to do with Midsomer Norton station, as her husband had just passed away and had a signal in their garden. As the police had the theft as a live investigation, John declined and didn’t ask for her name.

A distressing picture of Midsomer Norton signal box where the demolition was carried out by contractors without British Rail’s permission, the next photo showed the signal box which had been rebuilt to high standards by volunteers.

John showed a picture of the sight of Holt Station in Wiltshire. When Prince Charles visited the west country, the royal train would be parked in a siding.   An amusing incident happened at Holt when after the closure of the line two demolition trains were lifting the track only to find that one of them got isolated. A track gang had to be sent to relay the track in order to release the demolition train.

The presentation was very entertaining and appreciated by the audience.