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There are other unintended consequences too. The Scarboro -Whitby line had an over-bridge at Stainsacre and a recent refurb of the line by Scarboro BC and Sustrans left it in place. It was a missed opportunity because several years ago the Whitby Scarborough X93 bus service moved to double deck...

I learned during the Bulleid weekend at the Swanage railway some years ago that the rebuild programme had always planned to leave a group of unrebuilt WCs for use on the Ilfracombe line because of the parlous state of the bridge at Barnstaple, however events overtook the plan. How true this I am...

Was this The White Rose service that used Channel Tunnel units? I saw one at Potters Bar and it's been a long time since I fell in love with a train at first sight but it was breath-taking.

Yes indeed, although I did manage to see the Isle of Wight system in its 02 days and ride the little pier tramway at Ryde. I also took b+w pictures which I seem to have lost. My greatest 'missed' regrets were the Wenford Bridge tanks and the numerous industrial systems particularly the Kettering...

Certainly as a user of the routes to London from Dorking in the 60s the shortcomings of the route to London Bridge were painful. However I would suggest that four tracking Leatherhead to Dorking would be problematic because of the North Downs. Mickleham Tunnel would need doubling, following the...

I'm sorry but the point I'm making is not to do with the Titanic or indeed with the function of the carriages, although I was unaware of many rank and file vehicles of their age jostling for restoration; it is that I would feel that future generations would puzzle over why we abandoned...

I have watched and read with fascination your reflections. I suspect I am one of the older guys by some margin, but one thought bothers me. Apart from the not entirley well thought out preservation that took place when steam went, there nave already been too many 'perhaps we shouldn't have done...

Instinctively I would suspect it might have been part of the great shake-up following Prue Leith's appointment but I am uncertain of that date.

Surely my memory tells me there was at least one landowner who insisted on a tunnel to avoid spoiling his view? I can't recall where.

I wonder if he would have taken advantage of the slightly more generous loading gauge, or would have opted for the ability to go anywhere by sticking to the tighter limits?

I suppose it has to be the pea green engine with plum and spilt milk carriages that used to rush through West Byfleet. As a tiny I couldn't really make sense of what the station staff were clearly amused by. The spilt milk was replaced by the more serviceable cream and the malachite green died...

Thank you for that link I found it fascinating.

You have put your finger on the major part of the reason for UK steam, but it was not an unwillingness to buy oil, we were in a double bind. The US had pulled the plug on lease-lend so suddenly that not even its own embassy staff in the UK had been told. From around Christmas 1945 everything we...

Fascinating that after all these years it is possible to correct a childhood myth. Thank you for all the effort expended, it has always puzzled me. I wonder what caused my Nan to be so negative, she was ardently royalist.

I'll second that.

I agree, but my Grandmother who took was absolutely appalled; I simply remember this dark (not shiny) loco in the evening light.

In my first year of school I did what so many did those days, I caught every childhood illness going. My bedroom overlooked the mainline at West Byfleet and I was already an avid trainwatcher. Someone came in and told me to watch because there would a very special train soon. When it passed it...

Certainly one of our local lads and his gang ended up in front of the beak for the theft of a Goods Shed. The case foundered when it transpired that they had paid for one, and they claimed mistaken identity of a building.

I would have thought it read 'inter' so presumably an abbreviation for something like 'intermediate' but I'm not sufficiently well versed in terminology to know if this is feasible or credible.

That could be so, I believe the line was upgraded at some stage, but in the 1953-59 period when I was allegedly studying by the side of the line, we only ever saw one named WR engine on that daily duty, with the results related. in the latter days of course, there were many Southern named locos...