Memories of the railway in Sydney Gardens
by David Reed
I was born and brought up on the east side of town and these are my memories of Sydney Gardens and its railway, from my childhood to the present day.
In the early 1950s my mother and father took me to the Gardens many times in my pram, pushchair, or on ‘reins’ which kept us kids in check in those faraway days. After that, I would often ride my tricycle to the gardens, but in the later part of the decade, my trusty Raleigh ‘Palm Beach’ three speed bike would ensure a quick journey to the park, but a slower journey home, as it was uphill that way!
I clearly recall visits from 1955, where I learned my numbers from the steam engines that regularly passed through: expresses to London hauled by Kings and Castles, semi fasts to all sorts of places principally in the hands of Halls and Granges, local stopping services with Moguls, Prairie and Pannier tanks and an endless stream of goods traffic hauled by 2–8–0’s and 2–8–2 tanks, the latter mostly on coal traffic to and from South Wales.
Diesels came on the scene as early as 1957 and what strange beasts they were, growling and throbbing. A change from the lovely hiss and smell of steam discharging into the air. I despised them then, as I do now (a bit anyway) and all too soon they had replaced the products of Swindon.
The 1960s saw huge changes in motive power and in my own life. From (mostly) steam hauled trains at the start of the decade, to no steam hauled trains at the end. From 11 plus through to A levels, visits to the Gardens still took place, though more frequently up to the end of 1965 when steam finished. In those dying days the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway from Bath Green Park to Bournemouth took precedence.
By 1968 the visits I would have been more focused on just enjoying the Gardens or playing tennis with no more than a glance at the Warships, Westerns, Hymeks and Brush diesels passing through. Once BR had created their blue and white corporate image, it was all quite boring to be honest.
In the 1970s a certain young lady (now my wife) was a welcome distraction from the steamless days of most of that decade, although there was brief respite when 6000 King George V, now owned by Bulmers of Hereford, headed a return to steam special through the gardens in 1971.
I moved away from Bath in 1974 , which made visits far less frequent, but the Inter City 125s (no more than glorified diesel multiple units) going backwards and forwards held no appeal anyway.
I returned to Bath in the 1980s and the arrival of three young children gave an excuse to visit on summer days, and travelling from my new home in Bradford on Avon to Bath and (later) to Bristol by train meant renewed acquaintance with the Gardens on a daily basis.
The locomotive fleet had lost many of the first-generation diesels from the previous decade, and now the highlight of a journey was to be hauled by a ‘named’ Class 33. The Burma Star and Eastleigh were favourites, particularly as the latter was restored to its original green livery.
125s continued to ply their trade. Class 50’s and class 37s were seen regularly as were the ‘Brush’ types and occasional class 31s. But they were all blue and the rolling stock was still uniform.
In the 1990s my interest in the railways turned more to those of the model variety: supposedly for my son, but no one was really fooled.
However, in 1995 my (then) business partner and I moved our firm to Cleveland House, just over the road from the gardens, and so we could hear the services on the railway, usually leaving Bath Spa for the east, but the trains themselves were tantalisingly out of view.
There was though, pleasure to be had from sitting by the line at lunchtimes, with sandwiches and crisps: especially if the visit coincided with the ‘bins’: a goods services taking waste from somewhere or other, to the disposal site at Westerleigh.
The classes of diesels, apart from the ubiquitous 125’s were largely swept away in the 2000s and replaced by sprinters and pacers, making watching even less pleasurable.
Mainline steam though did take off again in this decade and all manner of locomotives could be seen traversing Sydney Gardens. Ex LMS, ex LNER and ex Southern Region locomotives mingled with the preserved ex GWR locomotives passed for mainline running.
The closest thing to time travel must be seeing a King, Castle or Hall once more plying their trade on the main line, and with digital cameras, compared to Box Brownies, what photographic opportunities they offer!
Thanks to Steve Jones, Dave Simpson, Pete Smith, Malcolm Young (now sadly playing with a great trainset in the sky) and latterly to Nick Richardson and Peter Clucas for allowing me to relive my railway experiences.
The Sydney Gardens Model Railway
by the Park Keepers
David Reed is one of the the Park Keepers - five friends who decided several years ago to build a scale model of the railway at Sydney Gardens.
The model is an accurate representation of the London to Bristol main line as it passes through the Gardens: it is built to the scale of 4mm to the foot (OO gauge) with a 24 road ‘fiddle yard’ at the rear. The trains that run on the display are typical of a normal day in the park between 1956 and 1966.
It has been exhibited nationally and has been given several accolades from the model railway press, being included amongst layout of the year in both Hornby Magazine and Model Rail.
