| The
Vale of Rheidol's ticket agency was a small
wood-frame building standing hard by the main Aberystwyth depot. Though new, it was
true to the VoR spirit-- none of line's preceding Aberystwyth stations had been much more
than plain wood sheds either. Inside, I found a small display of books and
knickknacks, and one employee waiting behind the counter. The first train of the day
had long since gone up the hill, she informed me, but there were still seats available for
the afternoon run. I gladly paid out my fare. Ticket safely in hand, I headed
out to poke about the city until train time.
|
||
 Vale of Rheidol #8, proud in her GWR green, maneuvers around her chocolate-and- cream carriages in Aberystwyth Station. |
A bite
of lunch and a walk along Aberystwyth's
fine seaside promenade made for a pleasant hour. Even so, by two I found myself
strolling back toward the VoR yards to await the returning down train. The smooth
edge of the old Manchester and Milford platform provided a pleasant place to sit, and I
laid down my bag, kicked out my feet, and enjoyed the heat of the bricks warmed by the
afternoon sun. My ears were cocked all the while for the first sounds of the
returning engine, but the VoR surprised me. With no audible warning, a bottle-green
steam engine suddenly popped into view around the corner of the engine shed.
Charging forward at a goodly clip, it rushed on through the carriage yard.
Bobbing in its wake were four carriages, handsome in their livery of deep chocolate
brown with a cream band along the window frames. Bottle green on the engine,
chocolate-and-cream on the passenger stock: the colors conveyed a message, as did the gold
leaf lettering on locomotive itself: it spelled, unmistakably, "GREAT
WESTERN." And at the sight of it, a lump rose in my throat.
|
|
 #8 and driver strike a pose while passing around their train in Aberystwyth Station. |
To be
sure, seeing GWR colors on a Vale of Rheidol
train is no very remarkable thing. Unlike the Talyllyn, which has always remained
independent, the Rheidol was a subsidiary of the Great Western from 1922 until
nationalization in 1948. As for my reaction to those colors-- well, the Great
Western is a railway dear to my heart. My novice encounter with British railroading
came on GWR ground, on a cold December night in 1986 when I first strode under the soaring
vaults of Paddington Station. My first British train ride, too, was an all-GWR
affair: a day trip from Paddington to Bath. To this day, I remember the way the
driver made our HST-125 get up and fly along Brunel's magnificent broad-gauge
right-of-way. My first conversation with a British railwayman was GWR again: seeing
me photographing the power car of his train at Paddington, an HST driver climbed down from
his cab and crossed the tracks to where I stood, to engage me in a bit of chat and pass
the time of day. I can't recall the substance of our talk, but I vividly remember
how much trouble my Yank ears had understanding his accent-- he was a Swansea man!
This was all technically in the era of British Rail, of course, but I wasn't taken in by
that fiction: it was still the Great Western, and from those days onward the Great Western
has been my British railway.
|
|
  Shades of the Great Western in VoR's Aber- ystwyth yards: chocolate and cream on a summer carriage; GWR initials on a goods wagon journal box. |
Hence
my joy when I saw Vale of Rheidol #8
entering Aberystwyth station. I had known that the VoR's locomotives were
Swindon-built, and that its carriages had been manufactured by GWR craftsmen. But I
had also understood that the Rheidol's Great Western identity had been firmly suppressed
during the line's forty years in the wilderness under British Rail. And yet here it
was: instead of old photographs in books, I had before me the living item-- an authentic
Great Western branch-line train of the 1930s, perfect in every detail. This day I
would turn back the clock, and ride a railway which had died-- on paper at least, if not
in the heart-- two decades before I was born. The who and the how of this miracle I
would learn later: at that moment I was simply grateful, and most sensible of the
privilege conferred.
|
