WE’VE tracked down one of the students who took over the Abingdon branch railway line for a day.

We pictured two members of the Oxford University Railway Society fitting their crest to the front of the Abingdon Flier, ex-GWR tank engine No 1447, in May 1959 (Memory Lane, January 18).

Ann Lemmon, of Blenheim Drive, Oxford, recognised the one on the left as Howard Burchell, then at Wadham College and now living in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Mr Burchell recalls that British Railways’ Western Region ran special trips between Abingdon and Radley for the students during a long gap in the Saturday afternoon timetable.

“Taking it in turns, we were able to ride on the footplate of the locomotive or in the cab of the coach.

“The train was a ‘push and pull’ – on the journey to Radley, the locomotive was pushing the coach, with the driver in a special compartment at the front of the train, where he could control the locomotive’s regulator and brakes. The fireman stayed in his usual place and attended to everything else.

“My memory says the train didn’t go right into Radley station, except at the beginning and end of the event.”

Mrs Lemmon tells me that Mr Burchell and his four children, three of whom went to Oxford University, are enthusiastic railway supporters.