My interest in the Calne branch line was sparked as a young teenager by family obligations which took us by car down the A4 Bath Road from Slough. Not far from the Wiltshire town of Chippenham, we would pass underneath a railway bridge and close by was a small station with the name Black Dog Halt on a large board. Having had an interesting response to an earlier enquiry about the Tetbury branch, I ventured another letter to the Public Relations Office at Paddington, asking what sort of trains worked this particular railway line. The answer was ‘diesel railcars’. I assumed that meant the Great Western AEC type and was soon making my way via Reading station, to Chippenham.
There, as instructed by a sign on the platform, I crossed over the footbridge to seek out the train to Calne. Unusually, although the branch was on the down side of the line, the branch bay was on
