These boys were on a mission — to collect the numbers of as many steam locomotives as they could.o They were on a trainspotters’ outing organised by the Oxford City Locomotive Club.

The picture was taken just before they started a tour of the March loco depot in Cambridgeshire on May 5, 1957.

The picture comes from Laurence Waters, the well-known Oxford author of railway books.

He writes: “The then club secretary, Michael Crew, is standing on the right, arm on hip.

“In the centre is a member of the March depot loco staff, probably an engine driver, who acted as our guide.

“The coach was from Drings of Oxford.”

He has identified some of the participants — Harrison, Doyle, Yeats, Waters, Walcroft, Berry, Pye, Stone, Soden, Cronshaw and Holmes — and would like to know the names of others.

They must have ended up with lots of numbers that day because, apart from March, they visited steam depots at Bedford, Cambridge, Peterborough, Kettering,Wellingborough and Northampton.

The whole day cost each trainspotter 13s 9d.

Oxford was a key centre for trainspotters in the steam age, with engines from four regions — Western, Eastern, Southern and London Midland — bringing regular passenger and freight trains to or through the city.

The station would often be thronged with spotters armed with their Ian Allan books which listed all the locomotive numbers and the ‘sheds’ where they were based.

As they spotted a locomotive, they would mark it off in their book.

Mr Waters was prompted to send in the picture after reading Alan Morgan’s memories of trainspotting (Memory Lane, July 7).

Mr Morgan wrote: “Many happy days were spent at Oxford, Didcot, Reading, Banbury etc, with Spam sandwiches and, if you were lucky, a bottle of Tizer.”

Many trainspotters would join visits organised by local societies to sheds further afield.

Sunday was always a good day because there were fewer train services and more locomotives were likely to be ‘on shed’.

Any more trainspotting memories and pictures to share with readers?