STUDENTS were given plenty of opportunities to run their own trains.
We reported (Memory Lane, January 18) how British Railways’ Western Region handed them control of the Radley-Abingdon branch line one Saturday afternoon in May 1959.
The Abingdon Flier, with ex-GWR tank engine No 1447 providing the power, ran up and down the line during a break in public services, with students in charge.
That wasn’t the only occasion that amateurs were allowed free rein of the tracks.
The picture, right, dates from a Sunday in March 1964 when society members ran trains from Morris Cowley to Thame on the old Oxford-Princes Risborough branch line.
The Oxford Mail reported: “From houses, bungalows and cottages, from fields and roadsides near the railway line, children waved and men and women gazed in amazement.
“For along the line, which lost its passenger service in January last year, came a four-coach passenger train, hauled by a brightly polished engine.
“The train provided the line with perhaps the most intensive Sunday service it has ever had, for it made six round trips.
“The difference was that the train was being driven by amateurs.
“It was specially chartered by the Oxford University Railway Society and under the watchful eye of a British Railways’ crew, society members and guests took turns to operate the controls of the engine.”
The locomotive, former Great Western Railway 61XX Class 2-6-2 tank engine No 6111, had hauled the last regular passenger train along the line on January 6, 1963.
It spent seven hours on the line as amateur drivers, working in pairs, fulfilled the ambition of every small boy. Not all those on the footplate were students – older railway enthusiasts queued for their turn at the controls.
They included the society’s president, the Rev GC Stead, of Keble College, and David Ainsworth, former stationmaster at Oxford.
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