Recently a good friend of mine, showed my girlfriend Julia round the sensational Royal Pavilion in Brighton. How to thank him? I thought. Les being a brilliant historian and a great railway enthusiast there was one place to thank him – the Fawley Hill Railway Museum.
Fawley Hill Railway Museum was built and is owned by Sir William McAlpine. The station and museum is run by enthusiastic volunteers who call themselves the Fawley Museum Society. Thanks to their efforts steam trains regularly puff up one of the steepest standard gauge tracks in the world – the gradient is amazingly around 1 in 13. (The Cass Scenic Railway, West Virginia, United States manages about 1 in 9)
We had loads of rides on the train enjoying the garden’s wild life and the various relics from Britain’s railway heritage – particularly amusing was the Eurostar station sign placed near one of the stations in the garden from Waterloo station, I believe. Les and I even had a ride on the merry-go-round horse – a first for me. I hadn’t had the courage before. It was great fun.
Our Morgan sports cars were allowed to park just outside the museum entrance overlooking the station, putting Thames Valley Centre’s pride and joys on display to the other clubs and societies that had been invited for a private visit.
It was a great honour for us to be invited back to visit this marvellous museum. On behalf of the Centre, I would like to thank Terry Tedman for organising and facilitating this extraordinarily special visit. I hope we will be able to go back again one day. Les was in his element and overwhelmed by all the railway artefacts on display. The over side effect was that Les wants to buy a Morgan now, and who can blame him, after he has passed his driving test.
Roger Bluff.
Centre Secretary: Thames Valley Centre.
