Preview

It is a morning in March 1964 and a visit to Paddington to meet my sister off the train back from school in Great Malvern was always an excuse to try and take some photos with my Brownie 44B

The locomotive numbers were never noted but 6A90 was the headcode for an afternoon Severn Tunnel Junction to Moreton Cutting Sidings freight which presumably was the Western’s previous working� Both trains here were parcels workings, a huge business for the railways then� The incongruous sight of an oil-lamp on the loco in addition to running lights and headcode panel rather encapsulates the philosophy of BR at the time �

Hymek Class 35 D7061, still bearing its ‘D’ number prefix, pulls into London Paddington with the 13.15pm 1C56 up Hereford and Worcester express in 1971. Looking very much the worse for wear, the Hymeks became regulars on these services for a time, as it had become almost traditional that the Cotswold trains would be the last main-line refuge of first steam, then the Hymeks and after them, the Warships. By the late 1970s, a frankly pathetic service of DMUs bolstered by two morning and evening through loco-hauled trains with Brush Type 4 Class 47s was considered adequate. Considerable migration of wealthy London commuters to areas such as Charlbury, Kingham and Moreton in Marsh since the turn of the century has, at last, persuaded the operators that the line deserves much more �

It’s around midnight at a strangely deserted Paddington one Friday night in April 1974�Waiting in platform 2 is the Western Class 52 that will head the overnight sleeper to Penzance, but first it has to pick up the Motorail GUV (General Utility Vehicle) from the loading ramp at the top of the platform at the buffer-stops before finally backing it, or them, onto the front of the sleeping cars� Over on platform 4 Hymek 7029 has a long, patient, wait at the head of a rake of GUVs and at least one Siphon G, before forming the early morning Thames Valley newspaper train� Over on platform 7 the stock is already in to form the 01�25am South and West Wales departure which ran via Gloucester and includes one of the relatively rare Mark 1 brake composites or BCK as they were coded� The Hymek was preserved and is currently undergoing restoration at the Severn Valley Railway by its owners, the Diesel Traction Group.