Description

Volume 1 Reading to Paddington

The journey starts from Reading and follows Brunel’s famous Great Western route into the capital, through Sonning Cutting, Twyford and Maidenhead. We change units at Slough to depart from the bay platform for Paddington. Onwards through Southall through West Ealing Junction etc. and to our final destination of the magnificent Paddington Station in the days before the Heathrow electrification.

Volume 2 Aylesbury to Marylebone

This second programme also takes the approach to the capital as its thread. This time we head for town on the Metropolitan/Great Central Joint line via Stoke Mandeville, Wendover and Great Missenden. The appearance of a centre siding for the reversal of Metropolitan line EMUs and the appearance of the conductor rails confirms we are now running on London Underground metals, with the Underground’s own signalling. Onwards through Chalfont & Latimer, Chorley Wood and Rickmansworth, through Moor Park, Northwood Hills and North Harrow we proceed towards the capital, entering Marylebone after a brief halt outside St John’s Wood Tunnel.

Volume 3 East Croydon to Farringdon

Filmed in 1991 this journey is from East Croydon to Farringdon station in Central London, and returning to West Croydon. The first inward leg is seen from a class 319 dual – voltage EMU operating the Thameslink service between Brighton and Bedford, introduced in 1988. We run straight up the former LB & SC mainline, and are booked non-stop from East Croydon to London Bridge – a distance of exactly ten miles. On the return journey we change at London Bridge into an all stations service for West Croydon via Peckham Rye, Tulse Hill and Streatham Common.