According to Chrisé Chris has developed a taste for bidding on old railway photographs on auction sites!
Like most modern businesses, magazine staff tend to use acronyms. On Model Rail, for example, ‘Opening the Box’ is ‘OTB’ and ‘Know Your Stuff’ becomes ‘KYS’. This page tends to be known as ‘Chris’ column’ although ‘ATC’ for ‘According to Chris’ has a nice link to the Great Western Railway. I recently suggested that I might ring the changes with ‘ATC’ by featuring the occasional archive photograph when there’s nothing more obvious to write about.
There’s nothing I enjoy more than browsing old railway photographs looking for reminders of places that I went to years ago, checking up on details for modelling, or just getting inspiration. I’ve been busy researching the Kemble-tetbury branch for a modelling project and I chanced upon a rather nice original colour slide on ebay. Sadly, I didn’t win the auction but it led me to these two gems which I did win, and subsequently to a slide of Staines West taking in an area that I hadn’t seen in previous photographs. I’m bidding for that as I write this!
Anyway, for a moment let’s dwell on these two pictures of GWR backwaters late in their BR careers. The first features Witney, the only significant intermediate station on the straggling 25-mile branch line from Yarnton, near Oxford, to Fairford. The branch was built as far as Witney by the Witney Railway and subsequently extended towards Cirencester by the East Gloucestershire Railway, which finally ran out of impetus in a field outside Fairford.
In 1961, Oxford-based ‘57XX’ 0-6-0PT No. 3653, with an Oxford-fairford train, is taking water at Witney (New), the EGR station, the original WR terminus having become the goods yard. It is interesting that the water column is mid-way along the Down platform, the station buildings being behind the photographer. The signal box and cycle shed on the Up platform are pure GWR and there’s a classically droopy GWR starter signal on the Down platform. It reminds me that this branch line was the test bed for the Great Western’s ATC (Automatic Train Control) system in the early years of the 20th century. An incredible innovation for its time, it was an electro-mechanical system which provided a footplate indication of signal aspects, allowing for much better timekeeping in foggy conditions.
For modellers there is plenty of detail to be seen, including splendid standard GWR gas lanterns and a running-in board, the latter also unusually placed mid-way along the Up platform. It typically lacks any lower frame to the board, thus allowing water to run off rather than causing rot.
The second picture is a scene which is repeatable these days at very few locations, yet was commonplace in the steam era, a branch connection. Collett ‘Mogul’ No. 7333 is making the Dulverton stop with a Barnstaple to Taunton train and connecting with the Exe Valley line autotrain which is boldly advertised on the running-in board. I don’t have a number for the ‘14XX’ 0-4-2T which is waiting to propel its Hawksworth autocoach back to Exeter St David’s by way of Bampton (Devon) and Tiverton. The year is 1962.
I did actually travel over the Taunton-barnstaple line by DMU before it closed, and my wife and I visited Dulverton by car several years later. The station area was derelict and my abiding memory of the visit was dropping, and breaking, the Thermos flask of coffee before either of us had enjoyed a much-needed drink!
For modellers, Dulverton Heritage Centre (www.dulvertonheritagecentre.org.uk) has an extensive ‘OO’ gauge model of the station and its surroundings. The actual station is now a private dwelling.
For modellers there is plenty of detail to be seen, including splendid standard GWR gas lanterns