In photos: a summer ride on the Cholsey and Wallingford preserved railway, Oxfordshire, England

The Cholsey and Wallingford Railway is a two and a half mile (4 km) long standard gauge heritage railway running along a large chunk of the former Wallingford branch of the Great Western Railway.

Trains depart from a bay platform at Cholsey station, which enjoys direct connections from Paddington, Reading and Didcot.

Passenger duties being are usually taken care of by a 1960s ‘bubble car’, a Class 08 diesel or the occasional visiting steam loco.

The original Wallingford railway station and the final segment of the line disappeared under a housing estate many years ago, prompting the preservationists to build this fine new station on Hithercroft Road.

Dominating the scene is the newly installed Maidenhead Canopy, which dates from the early days of Brunel’s Great Western Railway.

The railway became popularly known as the Wallingford Bunk.

The Curator of the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway Museum attributes the following story to the late Mrs Harold Gale.

“Around the turn of the century, the loco did a ‘bunk’. It left Cholsey station without its coaches. Harold and Len Gale, returning from football in Reading, had uncoupled the loco while it waited in the bay platform.”

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