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| Didcot Railway Centre |
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It was a pretty grey and blustery day and threatening to rain when Alfie (my four year old son) and I turned up to Didcot Railway Centre for one of their Steam Days. The inclement weather was not to prove any kind of barrier to what turned out to be a lovely day out. The queue of noisy boisterous children and their only slightly less noisy and boisterous parents and grandparents took me by surprise. This is a much more popular event that I had supposed.
Didcot Railway Centre has a remarkable history. It was founded in 1961 by four sixteen year old local schoolboys, Jon Barlow, Mike Peart, Angus Davies and Graham Perry. Recently, three of them took part in a BBC TV documentary that told the story of this remarkable living museum with twenty locomotives and over forty other vehicles!
What started as an effort to raise money to preserve and rebuild a locomotive has transformed into an industrial archaeological institution. In addition to the beautifully restored locomotives such as 6023 King Edward II (for which the centre has recently won an award), there are stunning coaches from the 1930s which one can ride in behind some of the Great Western steam locomotives.
Accompanied by the extremely helpful Education Officer, David Bevan, Alfie and I went on both lines – “The Main Line” and “The Branch Line”. We went up and down, up and down, up and down. In the end, the only way for me to persuade Alfie to do something else was the potential “shopping opportunity” in the well stocked and very reasonably priced gift shop – together with some hot chocolate and nibbles in the Buffet. To be honest, the hot chocolate and nibbles were for me, but he did have some fizzy cola (yes, yes I know it’s bad for him) and a jolly nice hot lunch.
After lunch we took part in some other activities including climbing on to the footplate of a GWR locomotive and learning about the skills of the driver and fireman, sitting in a third class open top carriage behind “Firefly” – one of the engineering wonders of the 1840’s and being shown how the guard and driver operate the train. It is no wonder that every schoolboy for a hundred years or more wanted to be an Engine Driver. For us grown ups, particularly grand grown ups, the smells, heat and soot are evocative of time passed, childhood memories, trips to the coast and possibly W.H.Auden (“This is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order”) and Sir John Betjeman (he wrote about his first trips as a child by train to his parents cottage in Trebetherick in Cornwall). The romance of steam as well as its industrial history is very much alive in Didcot.
Other attractions include interactive exhibitions about the science of railways which everyone seemed to enjoy using – children and grown ups; a World war II Air Raid Shelter; a recreation of Brunel’s broad gauge railway, branch line with restored buildings and signalling, turntable and more!
We had an absolutely splendid day and couldn’t recommend it too highly. The centre has over eighteen steam days coming up this summer, so make a date for your diary now.
Reviewed by Victor Glynn |
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