GWR Marlow Branch 150 Celebrations
Tuesday 27th June 2023 saw the 150th anniversary celebration of the Marlow Branch by Great Western Railway. Class 165 no: 165122 received decals showing the Marlow Branch and spent the day as the branch train. Invited participants of the event were asked to join the 10:33 departure from Maidenhead for a run up the branch to Marlow along with several members of the GWR and Network Rail management teams along with station staff from stations along the branch, about forty people in total. Those living along the branch either joined the train on its way to Maidenhead or on the “official” trip.
At Marlow, some were able to take a couple of photos, limited by the short turn around time and the numbers of other passengers alighting or joining the train. At Bourne End that party left the train to walk round to the “up” platform to take photos of the train departing to Maidenhead, before the formal ceremony took place on the same platform. Ruth Busby, GWR People and Transformation Director gave a short presentation about the event and thanking all those present from attending followed by a few words from Simon Gillibrand. There then followed the cutting of the celebratory cake by Ruth, before all sampled the cake along with tea, coffee or soft drinks, and the opportunity to talk about the branch line, and other railway related topics. Most then joined the 12:10 train to Maidenhead.
As it was the first day of the Henley Regatta, GWR train production had tried everything possible to have a special train to mark the event, but this was not possible as there were no spare units on the day, so the newly branded train was diagrammed to work the branch line for the whole day. My thanks to GWR for enabling such an event to occur under the current contract constraints and for making it such a friendly event. Let us hope that 165122 is now a regular performer on the Branch Line it now represents.
Steve Ollive