Readers’ Forum
Letters intended for publication should ideally add extra detail to our articles (or offer corrections of course!) and not be too long, consistent with the detail they offer. As always, we are sorry that space and time prevent us from printing them all or sending personal replies. ED.
Summer Saturdays to the Coast
I read with rapt interest Philip Benham’s two-part article’, in particular the second part referring to the events in the South West on Saturday 27th. July 1957.
I too have been researching that day with the help of the referred-to Summer Saturdays in the West authored by David St. John Thomas and Simon Rocksborough-Smith. The beginnings of this book, according to DStJ’s introduction, originated in the late Peter Gray’s approach to David & Charles to see if they would be interested in a work illustrated by him and written by SRS of the working of the Western Region’s main line on 27th. July 1957. SRS’s detailed record is unique in the annals of railway authorship.
In my research, I have discovered eleven wonderful images and captions produced by the late Ben Brooksbank, taken on that day, on Rattery and Dainton banks. I believe it important that these images are united with the detailed record of the day and the links are submitted herewith. By way of further interest, I would make the following observations.
SX 7360 photographed time estimate 10.55 shows 4960 Pyle Hall, recorded as four minutes early through Exeter St. Davids with the 8.05 Newquay to Newcastle and so may have escaped the worst of the West Country delays.
SX 7560 photographed time estimate 11.05, similarly 5093 Upton Castle was recorded only seven minutes late through Exeter with the 7.30 Penzance to Bristol TM.
SX 7760 photograph time estimate 11.1would be 6.55 Paddington-Penzance. I believe there is a location error here as this is Tigley Box again, looking east just minutes after the 7.30 Penzance-Bristol had passed.
SX 7760 photograph time estimate 12 noon of the 11.15 Plymouth-Paddington. The record shows this as
