Saturday, September 02, 2006
The Bunk of the Fest
As it was the Bunkfest, we'd planned to go on the Bunk - the engine on the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway - but the timetable meant we had to leave Sarah Griffin's set early.
Now I've had a chance to look at the map, I see that the private railway line is only 2 miles long which is quite surprising as the journey seemed to go on for a while. On reflection, we must have been moving pretty slowly but when you've travelled on the public railways, moving at all can sometimes be a luxury.
The dedication of the railway fans to keep the railway going was plain to see. Although the coaches could do with some repair, you could imagine how expensive it would be to overhaul one when you don't really have a regular revenue stream. We helped them out through ticket sales and I treated myself to a pint from the bar - the bar being some tables in the type of old coach that had a large area/cage for bikes, luggage, parcels, etc. It was quite weird to see such a coach which had been replaced so many years ago with seats-only coaches. They were selling bone china mugs to collectors too so that made my pint £6.50! A mug in more ways than one :-)
There was supposed to be a live band on the train but on the outward-bound trip we were in the wrong end of the train and the musicians weren't strolling from their end. So on the return we sat down that end and had some background music to our view of the countryside. I did take some photos as we went but the windows were pretty grubby so none of them were really great. For examples, here is the Cholsey Parish Church where the author Agatha Christie is buried:
Now I've had a chance to look at the map, I see that the private railway line is only 2 miles long which is quite surprising as the journey seemed to go on for a while. On reflection, we must have been moving pretty slowly but when you've travelled on the public railways, moving at all can sometimes be a luxury.
The dedication of the railway fans to keep the railway going was plain to see. Although the coaches could do with some repair, you could imagine how expensive it would be to overhaul one when you don't really have a regular revenue stream. We helped them out through ticket sales and I treated myself to a pint from the bar - the bar being some tables in the type of old coach that had a large area/cage for bikes, luggage, parcels, etc. It was quite weird to see such a coach which had been replaced so many years ago with seats-only coaches. They were selling bone china mugs to collectors too so that made my pint £6.50! A mug in more ways than one :-)
There was supposed to be a live band on the train but on the outward-bound trip we were in the wrong end of the train and the musicians weren't strolling from their end. So on the return we sat down that end and had some background music to our view of the countryside. I did take some photos as we went but the windows were pretty grubby so none of them were really great. For examples, here is the Cholsey Parish Church where the author Agatha Christie is buried:
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