Didcot Railway Centre
Over the christmas break we decided to visit The Didcot Railway Centre in Oxfordshire. We had never been before and upon our arrival we were pleasently surprised. The car park was quite busy and we had to queue for a few minutes to get in and it was a very cold December morning.
They had a couple of full size locos in steam ready for us to have a ride on and lots of locos, wagons and carriages of all types to walk around and admire.
All in all we had a good day, with a few rides on each of the trains so we could warm up in the carriages. You could ride on the trains as many times as you liked. It's well worth a visit...
Plenty of steam
This is engine number 5322 built in 1917 at Swindon.
We waited on the platform for her arrival.
Firefly
This is an interesting loco, she is a replica of a 1840 broad gauge engine designed by Daniel Gooch. This replica was built in 2005 and runs on the Didcot broad gauge railway on special days giving rides behind in their replica third class open carriage.
Brunels Atmospheric Caper
This is a piece of the Atmospheric railway which Brunel had designed around 1810. The pipe was laid between the two tracks which the carriages were then attached to. Pumping stations powered by steam engines were located at the side of the track. One of these still exsited in Starcross near Dawlish in Devon. Here the pump house forced air out the tube creating a vacunm to one side of the carriage and atmosphere to the other thus propelling it along the track.
This system never really worked having many practical problems, one being keeping a air tight seal between the tube and carriages.
