THE SEVERN BOAR – NOT BORING AT ALL
Lots of railway enthusiasts have a problem with when they were born. Over the years I’ve talked to many who would start a conversation about trains with the words: “I was just too young to…”
I was certainly just too young to enjoy the heyday of the branch line railtour. I saw one or two, however. I recall Adams ‘Radial’ 4-4-2T No. 30582 coming to Staines Central, far from its native haunt on the Lyme Regis branch. It took water at Staines before heading its three LSWR coaches down the branch to Windsor. I even persuaded my Dad to photograph it!
A while later my brother, and I hopped on one of the new Greenline Routemaster buses to Hampton Court to see a pair of Beattie ‘Well Tanks’ arrive with a railtour. I photographed passing my home with a main line railtour and also a ‘Britannia’, No. 70020 , which was not a class I was familiar with. To return, however, to the subject of branch line tours, the last steam-hauled tour I saw was the visit by 0-6-0PT No. 9773 to Staines West in summer 1965. After that I travelled on a couple on a diverted return trip from one of the Welsh narrowgauge lines.
