TVY Didcot

Brian Sullivan returns to give us a further selection of historic scanned slides taken by Tommy Tomalin, this time covering the route from Didcot through to Snow Hill station in Birmingham. There are stops at various stations along the route to see the railway operations.

Railway carriages may be overshadowed by the glamour of the locomotive, but they can be glamorous too - or very basic! This presentation traces the diverse and fascinating story of how carriages evolved from the early stagecoach on rails; to modern day vehicles, with more than a few trials and errors along the way. Take…

Martin, who is well known to many of our RCTS Branch members, having been the host of our successful Swindon Works railway sites tour which we ran last year, comes from a long family line of Swindon railway employees. In this talk Martin will give us some of his personnel experiences of life inside Swindon…

The presentation explores the fluctuating history of the North London line and includes a photographic journey from Richmond to the former Terminus of Broad Street.

The talk describes the long and complex story of railways around Mangotsfield where the first railway transporting coal arrived in 1832. We then follow the history with various railway companies involving both standard and broad gauge, to closure and the establishment of the Bristol and Bath Railway Path which was the first project by Sustrans.

Richard Antliff (Didcot Railway Centre Civil Engineering Adviser) returns to give us a further insight into some of the recent and future planned projects being undertaken at the Didcot Railway Centre site. In addition, as we celebrate Rail 200 this year, Richard will also show us some of the activities happening at other railway sites…

Geoff’s slide show covers specifically what can be seen on the railways of London. The slide show contains a brief selection of older shots but is largely up to date, covering the last 2½ years. The emphasis being on the new and unusual workings.

Paul Finch the Vice Chairman & Publicity Officer of the Western Locomotive Association, gives us his presentation covering the highs and lows of preserving and operating three Western Class 52 diesel hydraulic locomotives, for more than four decades.