at 40.04 there is the severed stump of Fawley's Down Distant marked by the 2 large silver birch trees so at some point from 2010 on wards it was cut down.
@tonywise19829 күн бұрын
Good ole Thumpers. We used to have some around Portsmouth-Salisbury until the "electrocuted" the line back in 1990. I love to hear their "burble" as they speed along.
@OlafProtАй бұрын
I remember this episode SO well. Being inside the boiler. It was exciting and interesting having one's favourite subject appearing on Blue Peter!!
@OlafProtАй бұрын
28:20 wonderful hearing the kids in the background dutifully spending time With daddy's filming. They must treasure this now. I went to Reading (from Dorking) in 1979 with mum for a day trip spotting and we couldn't even afford a camera film. Having film of it would be extraordinary!
@OlafProtАй бұрын
24:33 all that semaphore signalling ❤
@richardgriffiths5920Ай бұрын
Having left the mother country exactly 50 years ago in June 1974, watching videos like these help keep me in touch with railway journeys in the UK. As I love to reminisce of the old railway lines on trips I have traveled as a young lad on holidays in the past, it keeps my memories alive. I want to say how much I appreciated your wonderful whole five segments of this fantastic trip in areas I was once familiar with and want to say how diligent I thought the driver of this Hastings Diesel was with his horn warnings well before the sign appeared. Also the information provided on the screen was extremely informative of old by-gone days of over two centuries. You all have to be commended.
@hastingsdieselsАй бұрын
Many thanks for this! Glad we've been able to keep you reminiscing!
@christopherbraiden6713Ай бұрын
Thanks for the video, love these Thumpers!!😎🚃🚃🚃🇬🇧
@marccheban1942 ай бұрын
This is a beautifully done video, with excellent annotations! Bravo!👏
@hastingsdiesels2 ай бұрын
Thank you, glad you liked it!
@philippefoubert19562 ай бұрын
Magnifique balade dans la campagne anglaise, très astucieusement montée en 5 parties. Il faut le reconnaître, vous êtes les meilleurs dans la préservation de lignes et de matériels anciens. Ancien bénévole sur une ligne musée belge, le CFV3V, je connais les difficultés rencontrées pour l'exploitation et l'entretien de l'ensemble. Bravo et amitiés à tous. 🤗👍
@hastingsdiesels2 ай бұрын
Merci bien, Philippe!
@jonathangreenwood7932 ай бұрын
As a local lad who has commuted this route to Slough for work (20+ years), popped to Hungerford with the family for days out etc I can only say how wonderful this video is. Great to see the route from the track.
@hastingsdiesels2 ай бұрын
Thank you Jonathan, glad you enjoyed it!
@grahamallen19702 ай бұрын
I was a trainman G at oxford 88 to 89 i was one of the guards on the special opening day of Islip station....in its single line days😊 happy memories
@florjanbrudar6922 ай бұрын
"1985ish"?
@hastingsdiesels2 ай бұрын
Yup. I don't know exactly the date of the TV transmission which was recorded on the videotape, and then decades later sent to me in the post by a stranger as it featured my train. Please be kind.
@IanCunningham-xv3fh3 ай бұрын
Proper trains enjoyed watching then lucky to have a friend of my family use to drive sadly not around he was very passionate loved his job .
@user-hj6dt9nk4n3 ай бұрын
I well remember those trains - can’t believe it’s 40 years ago Seems like yesterday
@dwstrains4 ай бұрын
Superb video - many thanks for sharing!!!
@freddieellis84494 ай бұрын
Could you imagine the health and safety lot’s reaction if they saw you jump off a still moving engine like that, today! 😂😂
@ChrisAndrewsFirth-ci5ri4 ай бұрын
Going past Ashford works in 1965 there where several steam locos parked, does anyone know what they were?
@mrsulzer665 ай бұрын
Great video, (hope you get that wheel flat sorted).😉🙏
@peter230986 ай бұрын
Why did we pass an HST before Melksham? They are not normally rostered to this route?
@hastingsdiesels6 ай бұрын
Have a look at 2:58 on Part 1 (Reading to Hungerford) of this series, which confirms the answer: the Didcot route was closed for engineering work (almost certainly electrification-related) so HSTs (and us) were on diversion via the Berks & Hants. (ITYM Trowbridge!)
@denelson836 ай бұрын
A route that Eurostar used for nine years.
@Phil-oj5nr6 ай бұрын
Also a thank you for the captions, many videographers leave that detail out, and overseas viewers and those not familiar with the lines traversed are left wondering.
@Phil-oj5nr6 ай бұрын
I guess the Marshland line was double track but rationalised at some point. Third rail is missing, just like Shalford Junction to Reigate. Always wondered why those two obvious gaps were never built. Also Aldershot South Junction to Wokingham. I left UK in 1963 and returned for a holiday in 2005, and was very surprised the upgrade wasn’t completed. We travelled over the route from Ashford to Brighton in 2014 on another trip.
@ed_ward_14307 ай бұрын
At 14.47 legend should read: "A35 dual carriageway". The A36 is the Salisbury Road.
@hastingsdiesels7 ай бұрын
Yes, you're right. This was already written as an ERRATUM note in the video description.
@peteweller1177 ай бұрын
Used this line to go fishing in Tonbridge on Saturdays and school holidays with friends in the 60's. Usually, I set off around 7am from Redhill and came home when it got dark. I'd have been about 11 at the time. I lived near Reigate at the time.
@joeplaysgame7 ай бұрын
There are actually plans to reopen the line for passengers this year or next year with 2 new stations, Marchwood and Hythe and 3 level crossing upgrades, Jacobs Gutter Lane, Marchwood and School Road
@AnthonyValentine-vm1yc8 ай бұрын
Always wondered how elec trains go thru a washer. (Slowly, wearing thick rubber boots! LOL!). Surely it would be necessary to perodically clamber on the roof and scrub it clean, after the unit/loco has been switched off/isolated?
@Kandlelite8 ай бұрын
Gosh the late great class 319 in thameslink colours lol another one added to the collection love this
@laurenceskinnerton738 ай бұрын
Interesting.
@KenwayJoel8 ай бұрын
I remember hearing the Ashford thumper going through Hampden Park every morning when I was younger, I also heard it miles away up in Old Town as well many times. I love that sound, the raw power you hear from these engines is quite something.
@Broadercasting9 ай бұрын
Some of my first memories were looking down at the steam locomotives in Park Sidings (1:52). Years later, my first Rail Rover covered part of this line.
@Kandlelite9 ай бұрын
Was gonna shout out OH A HST … then it dawns on me it’s 6 years ago 😂🤣😂 especially a blue one now they are green
@laurenceskinnerton739 ай бұрын
I’ve been here.
@Kandlelite9 ай бұрын
Can’t believe this is 6 years ago now love watching these over and over again
@roberthowlett93189 ай бұрын
This is so relaxing thank you!!!
@hythekent9 ай бұрын
Richard, great work! I’m watching this in Nov 2023. Having grown up in Ashford, worked in Smeeth, lived also in Hythe, and now living on the outskirts of Dover I can say that I know the area surrounding your journey very well. Your excellent captioning was accurate and well researched. I’m thinking the tunnel under the country house grounds is probably either the Brabourne family’s ‘New House’, owned by Lord Brabourne (married the late Countess Patricia Mountbatten). Or perhaps the original Palladian manor - Mersham Le Hatch, on the other side of the A20, the seat of the Knatchbull family. I hadn’t realised there were so many disused stations on the route. As you approached the two tall gothic tunnel entrances before Dover you described the ‘new’ Samphire Hoe country park there. This was in fact created as you say from (half) of the spoil of the channel tunnel boring except that was chalk marl, not just chalk, an interesting conglomeration of clay and chalk from beneath the sea bed. I am also a volunteer ranger at Samphire so that part was particularly fascinating. It is in fact another SSSI and is a riot of colour in spring with orchids and other flowers
@hastingsdiesels9 ай бұрын
Hi and thank you for your kind comments. Yes, I am fond of this area and lived in Canterbury for a couple of years about a quarter-century ago; during my time there I paid visits to the (then rather newer) Samphire Hoe CP and was duly impressed by its scale and history. I am certain its flora & fauna will have continued to increase as it 'grows into itself'. I also went to the fenced-off but still vaguely extant Dover Western Docks station, seeing from afar its signal box (soon to be demolished) and a quadrilingual sign about keeping off the tracks (there weren't any left; someone else pilfered the sign before I could)!
@hythekent9 ай бұрын
@@hastingsdiesels Would be great if you visited Samphire for a chat and a tour of the maturing land. And join us for a coffee in the shelter, let us know if you are going to visit so I can be there, I am a ranger.
@hastingsdiesels9 ай бұрын
Thank you - I am by no means local to there but will bear it in mind should I plan to be in the area.
@jase1117410 ай бұрын
13:04 and 13:25
@stevehillier701810 ай бұрын
Passing the Hither Green Disaster site of 1967.
@29brendus10 ай бұрын
Great video with a mind boggling array of junctions, flyovers and switches. How about a few photos at the end of the trainset that we were traveling on?
@hastingsdiesels10 ай бұрын
Following feedback of this nature, in my more recent videos I have done so. But you can also see hundreds-literally hundreds!-of photos of our train at www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk
@29brendus10 ай бұрын
@@hastingsdiesels Thank you, yes, I found them since my last comment. I was thinking there were many different trains or engines involved, but I visited your website and know a bit more now. I also learnt that some trainsets were 'thinner' or narrower than others, and that was a revelation.
@hastingsdiesels10 ай бұрын
Ah, glad you found out about all that. :) Welcome to the unique and slightly limited world of Hastings Diesels!
@mjspice10010 ай бұрын
I travelled many times in the opposite direction to Newark then onto Kings Cross but never travelled in this direction…
@juular156511 ай бұрын
It's all the knowledge and information given in the captions that make these videos brilliant.
@hastingsdiesels11 ай бұрын
Glad you like them. My aim is to start with useful footage and then to provide further interpretation for viewers without this being unduly intrusive.
@paull261311 ай бұрын
Brilliant thank you
@paulshorney346511 ай бұрын
Growing up in Basingstoke I've done this line a good few times! 😀👍
@matmilne11 ай бұрын
Thanks for this. It's such a magnificent line across the Romney marsh, past quaint, picturesque Rye and the dramatic Cadborough cliffs. Reminiscent of the Scottish lowlands in its rural fog-bound beauty, this vital home counties amenity deserves much more attention than it gets.
@hastingsdiesels11 ай бұрын
Thank you - and fully agreed!
@ralphsimpson523011 ай бұрын
158 yards! We have been Metric since 1973!!!
@hastingsdiesels11 ай бұрын
Give it a rest. These tunnels were built, and the railways created, in general about 170 years ago. As a result, the official measurements of distance on Network Rail is in Miles & Chains for location, and Miles & Yards for length.
@ralphsimpson523011 ай бұрын
All those years 12 inches to the foot the nonsense goes on and on and on, I have surveyed land in Imperial and Metric. If you had to work, which would you choose?@@hastingsdiesels
@hastingsdiesels11 ай бұрын
The information on locations and structure-lengths is given by the Sectional Appendix in miles and chains/yards, because that is what Network Rail uses, because that is the dataset they have inherited. That is my primary source for the data in these free videos, and it would be disingenuous for me (or you) to pretend that I knew better than the official source. If you want to convert the official measurements to other units, you are welcome to do so.
@user-yn2yb3ym4o11 ай бұрын
Lovely countryside ride.
@laurenceskinnerton73 Жыл бұрын
Interesting.
@laurenceskinnerton73 Жыл бұрын
Interesting.
@swiftymorgan5064 Жыл бұрын
Love the sound of these engines For myself, they compare very well with the 37's and 50's
@borisfeigin9205 Жыл бұрын
Thank you very much for posting. Just wanted to ask about the MOD siding between Dilton Marsh and Warminster...has that been removed or have I just missed it?:)
@hastingsdiesels Жыл бұрын
I don't think I remember knowing anything about it, so if it wasn't shown in the Sectional Appendix and I couldn't see it on the video or on maps, I won't have mentioned it. Therefore my guess is that it had gone?
@borisfeigin9205 Жыл бұрын
@@hastingsdiesels Thank you very much for the answer. Looks like it :) The reason why I was asking is because I play a bit of SimSig and it's on their Westbury layout but not sure where their info would be coming from, hehe:)