G.W.R. - MAY 2011

When I was a “tacker” (West Country vernacular for a youth) and wanted to go somewhere, I would go by train. I was bred and buttered in G.W.R country.
G.W.R. country was highly rural and had spiders’ webs of branch lines that connected remoter towns and villages – parts of the Country Railway System, which was to be butchered by Beeching in the 1960s. The tiny road that ran past our house petered out in Golant on the Fowey River. If you went through Golant you might come to Golant Halt, the primitive and only station on the Lostwithiel and Fowey Railway. Lostwithiel was on the main Paddington/Penzance Line – very few main line trains seemed bothered about stopping there but it was the terminus for the Fowey Line. The Fowey Line was a typical G.W.R. branch line.
Trains normally consisted of a tank engine, a single passenger coach and on high days, a parcel van.

On really high days, begging the absence of a Railway Inspector, I was allowed to ride on the footplate – especially if Ken Williams was stoker. Ken had an “understanding” with Amy, who worked for my grandmother, so Amy was my passport. It was only about 10 miles to Fowey, but the line followed the winding of the Fowey River. The line may have been short but it must have been one of the most scenic in England (which it wasn’t - it being in Cornwall).
After leaving its’ spur in Lostwithiel, the little train would cross the splendid Resprynn viaduct, then along the steeply wooded bank of Pelynn woods. I might then have been told to pull the whistle card to alert the seething mass of shoppers, (possibly as many as 6) crossing the platform at Golant, the only halt.
The line then continued below the Golant Downs, past the creek at Saw Mills and the signal cabin at Carne Point, where Tom Bassett could always be relied on for a mug of strong milk-less tea; After that it was past the docks where a line of ships waited to ingest a load of China clay. Then a clatter over the points, blast on the whistle and into Fowey station.

Before the Hitler War, passengers could travel on through the Pinnock Tunnel and along the coast of Par Bay and into Par station. “Par, Par! Change for the Newquay Line” - another branch line I always wanted to do and tried very hard to persuade Nanny to take me. I was told very firmly that “The Gentry” did not go to Newquay; so that was that. Be that as it was, the “Golant Flyer” was part of a magical childhood. There is no passenger service now – the line is freight only “Ehen Fugaces!”

In another world, I used to be sent from London (where I was learning to fail as a Chartered Accountant) to do an audit in Bedford. This was extreme boredom, but I could relieve part of it by a bit “Extreme Steam”. There was ‘Country Railway’, which dawdled over the Cotswolds from Kingham Junction to Cheltenham; passing through enchanted names like Stow-on-the Wold, Bourton-on the Water, Naunton, Hawling, Andoversford (where the Cotswold Hunt Kennels were) and down the hill to Cheltenham. This was a magical sleepy journey, but it is not for you, because whilst you were drowsing someone has ripped up the tracks – the sad fate of so many Country Railways.