Railways of the Past

Branch member Martin Hubbard took us through his photo archives at the February meeting of the Solent branch to give a presentation on Railways of the Past. The oldest photo dated from 1956 on a visit to Paignton Zoo. Returning home Martin visited his local sheds of Redhill and Three Bridges. A family move to East Anglia in the early 1960s enabled visits to be made to Shoeburyness and Ipswich and London trips to depots such as Old Oak Common and Feltham. A rare photo at Ilford showed the former LNER electric locomotive 26510 constructed for the Shildon - Newport electrification present as departmental shunter number 100.

Martin’s career with British Rail took him to Yorkshire where he was able to obtain a ride across the Pennines on a Class 76 hauled freight .In the mid 1960s Martin worked for BR at Liverpool Street. Lunch time trips were made to see the end of steam on the Southern Region at Vauxhall. The late 1980s found Martin in the Hampshire area where cab rides included the carriage washer at Eastleigh and a Freightliner trip to London. Enthusiast visits took him far and wide in the UK

Time meant that the curtain had to be brought down by the time we had reached the year 1995. We look forward to a further fascinating look through the photo archives in our next season of meetings.