OUT TO OXFORD

I wonder if today’s teenagers enjoy anything like the same freedoms that I, and countless of my generation, did in the early 1960s? Looking back, it seems that what my brother and I did in terms of travelling to places by train, unaccompanied, at the ages of 15 and 12 would never be allowed today. Our parents always erred on the side of caution, yet they allowed it. Or did we, perhaps, not always reveal the extent of our travels?! At this distance in time, I really can’t remember.

Initially, it was all about trainspotting, and that had begun in our back garden, right beside the Southern Region line between Staines Central and Egham, on what was known as ‘the Reading line’. Though all the passenger services were electric multiple units, there was steam aplenty on freights to and from Feltham yard and Nine Elms goods depot. Occasional weekend diversions would bring Bournemouth and West of England expresses past home, and I well recall seeing the green ‘GUV’ vans of the up Surbiton-Okehampton Car Carrier on one occasion. It must have involved an interesting reversal around Clapham Junction to reach Surbiton!

Copping all the ‘Q1’ 0-6-0s, all the ‘H16’ 4-6-2Ts and all the surviving ‘S15’ 4-6-0s was a piece of cake. Bulleid ‘Light Pacifics’ were pretty common, too, but it tended to be the same ones, Nos. 34049 Anti-Aircraft Command and 34054 Lord Beaverbrook being among the regulars. I recall my Dad having to explain to me why a ‘Battle of Britain’ locomotive was named after a newspaper tycoon.

The only way to see more variety was to go further afield, first to Weybridge, where we had lived a few years earlier, and later to Iver in Buckinghamshire. Iver station was not unlike Weybridge in that it offered footpath vantage points above a cutting. However, our quest at the time was to see diesels. Iver offered those and Weybridge did not. Looking back, the WR steam at Iver