For me, a trainspotting location had to be ‘comfortable’. I was pretty timid. I could never ‘bunk’ a shed for fear of being caught. My brother Roger ‘bunked’ Nine Elms on one occasion in the company of a number of other lads who were complete strangers. I couldn’t have done it with friends, never mind people I didn’t know! I preferred a lineside location on public land with certain basic facilities nearby. Primarily, that needed to be a place where I could buy food and a soft drink. I preferred to be alone or just with people I knew.
I could pick up a Lyons Individual Fruit Pie (remember them? – I liked the apricot ones) from Stroud’s dairy shop at the top of our road, but they were invariably stale. A place that had a shop with quicker turnover was better. That was why Weybridge had been so suitable. However, although I had seen my first diesel, years earlier, at Weybridge in the shape of LMS No. 10000, now that I wanted to see diesels in quantity, Weybridge had nothing to offer.
We knew, however, that the Western Region had plenty of diesels and they were an ‘interesting’ shape and had names. Other regions had boxes on wheels. The Western had diesel-hydraulics. West Drayton was the nearest place on
