Welcome to our latest offering. #EveryDisusedStation from the Witney and Fairford Line. This week we try and explore Every Disused Station along a line with two stories.
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If I was a television producer watching your vlogs then I would have to sign you both up for a pilot television series.
You are that good.
Thanks for your time and efforts to produce your volgs.
Keep safe warm dry and virus free both.
When you see pictures of the old railway lines that no longer exist its heartbreaking and tragic.
good vid in my area the river is the windrush.
Great video, really enjoyed your recollections of starting your YouTube channel, I enjoyed watching your first videos. But I disagree …… you are funny well you both are and your gags add to the enjoyment.
I think your right to adapt the every disused stations series towards those which do have a story which you can relate, maybe its not necessary to see the remains if you can provide other evidence. Sometimes things grow into the background!!
Well done on reaching the 500 mark. Interesting to see that it was at Carterton. Only a few weeks ago this station was discovered on Ron's "Parkinsons walks" channel on the Fairford to Witney Abandoned Railway Alvescot to Carterton video. The station is still there but just doesnt look like a station.
Have a great week and good luck from Spain!!
Congratulations Paul and Rebecca, a great achievement and a great new video to boot! It's interesting how you started; did you have any video editing skills before or did you just pick it up as you went along? Keep up the good work.
@4:42 at Kelmscott and Langley the concrete post you spot looks like a Southern Railway Exmouth Junction art deco design. Curious!
Have you walked on the old Stonebridge line ( maxstoke ,Coleshill ,Whitacre Heath ) ? it branched off the main west coast railway at Hampton -in -Arden close to where the NEC in Birmingham is now !
500+ stations is a monumental effort. Congrats Paul and Rebecca!!! Love your channel!
Well done on clocking up 500 abandoned Railway Stations. Yes concentrate on the ones that interest you in the future.
I grew up in the 60’s, and remember picnicking outside one down in Devon whilst on holiday in about 1967/68, a lot had just been left to rot back then. My grandparents lived in Mary Tavy & even today I cannot believe they shut the line from Oakhampton down through Tavistock towards Plymouth.. still needs re-instating!..
So what was with the new crossing sign?
Always bemuses when they put housing on the site of old stations. With all the extra car journeys that creates..
Congratulations on getting to 500 Paul, great achievement. I think a platform survived at Lechlade until relatively recently, but finally vanished when that lovely housing estate you briefly showed was built.
If, as had first been planned, the line continued to Cirencester (via Kemble) and then on to Cheltenham it would have been even more useless tha stopping where it did – apart from in wartime, when it was well-used taking airmen to Oxford and then bring the drunks back again later on.
So many lines were duplicated during the early railways years, with landowners making tidy sums out of ignorant investors.
Read Harold Gasson's stories about the line – still available second-hand, although Harold himself, signalman extraordinaire, is now long gone!
Amazing 👏.
Very nice.
I actually visited a disused station yesterday. Angel Road, just north of Meridian Water (about 50 yards between the south end of Angel Road and the north end of Meridian Water). The latter replaced the former about 5 years ago due to local construction and wanting to increase services there (plus adding a bay platform), and I was a little surprised at how visible the platforms still are.
I made it to over 700 mainline stations yesterday, as well as doing the remaining 31 DLR stations to finish off all 45. I also rode as many DLR units as I could, leaving about 44 of the remaining 146 in service to ride (I wasn't bothered about doing more than that, because not all units are out on a given day, and I couldn't identify any in Beckton depot).
In 2000 on a holiday to the UK I was in the Witney area and a VC10 passed overhead coming into land at Brize Norton.
5:55 You have commented about the carpets but they were made of wool and you missed the bunch of teazles growing there – they were so essential for teasing out the knotty bits in the wool.
I always think when I see documentaries and your videos how much of a shame it is to see these old buildings and structures left to decay. Many men worked so hard to achieve the goals of the engineers, Brunel and the like, only for some idiot like Breeching just to put a pencil line on a map and condemn it.
Hey, come on, what's with the click bait thumbnail? 😉 In other news, 500 stations is a lot, wow. I doubt I've visited 500 stations in my entire life!
Congratulations on the milestone. If I saw a lamppost out in the middle of nowhere I'd start looking for Mr Tumnus.
Loving the longer, less frequent videos – wise move!
Carry on Paul & Rebecca. Where's the drone?
Thank you for creating and sharing these videos. It's such a loss of transport routes when railways were closed and the lines built over or dug up. Now that places such as Witney have a much bigger population, many of whom commute into Oxford, it could really do with a good train service. Given the landscape it's not challenging. We should be looking to restore these routes, perhaps to run solar/hydrogen powered trains. Large areas alongside the route/tracks would support solar farms. Even creating, cycle or walking routes would be really good, currently cyclists have to use congested A roads to travel in these areas. In some cases the routes could be expanded to provide roads away from the existing roads disturbing small villages.
Hi Paul the river in Witney is the Windrush.
I was told by a Fairford resident, the line was planned to join the MSWJ&R line near Cirencester, going North to Cheltenham and South to Swindon.
Hi guys.
I visited castle Howard station in York last year as it’s now a holiday let next to a live line. Great station.
Great work.
When I was little we often used to visit relatives driving down the A417 to Fairford and my father would point out Fairford station site, where in those days you could clearly see the old station building and platform – it was just past where the line crossed the road. At some point in the late 80s/ 90s the business that owned the yard expanded over the station site. The wild end of line that you found must have been some sort shunting area or goods yard. I did not know the goods yard in Witney was the original terminus – now occupied by Sainsburys! Your videos are always historical, interesting and witty – so I do think you're funny even if you don't – Here's to the next 500!
You've developed a great story telling technique so that is what you should focus on. Whether it's old railways or Roman roads, the story is the star, well done on the 500!
Littered with spelling mistakes, mispronounciations and errors in dates
Congratulations to 500 abandoned stations. I really love all your videos. Those railway ones always remind me that I live at an abandoned railway myself, though it has only been shut down in 1992 🤣
Mid suffolk railway from Haughley to laxfield .Would make a good firm as it stop in field in the middle of the country
Just after 4 min's in you talk of LechDALE and at 04:06 your map shows that it's LechLADE-on-Thames. Still enjoy your content 👍 Thanks.
Thx for all the history
Im only 17seconds in,
And ive already followed the entire route on NLS,
then cross referenced the whole thing on ggl mps,
Lsbelling every poi enroute,
Including all rail bridges hidden in abandoned bushes too.
Took me an hour or so.
Time well spent.
😅😅😅😅
Back to the film……
Half the time the YouTube captions spell Witney incorrectly. It isn't an American singer.
When you come to do the second half, how about walking along the proposed route of the next Witney Oxford rail line. Check the maps from the WOT campaign (Witney Oxford Transport).
I enjoy your tails from the fields and hedge rows on old railways
That river was, presumably, the Windrush, yeah? And congratulations on the 500! Awesome.
The concrete lamp post at Kelmscott used to have an oil lamp on a wire; You lit the lamp and then hoisted it up on a wire.
In Witney, stand at the Leys' recreation ground and look across to the "AMBIC" industrial building; That is the rough site of Witneys' second station building, the line of trees down from the church carry on across the road behind the Autocare garage and this was the entrance and station forecourt. The Cottsway offices are the site of the water tower with the access road into the induatrial estate was once the site of the bridge carrying the road to Ducklington over the line.
The original station and then Witney Good Station entrance is exactly where Sainsburys goods in entrance is. If you walk from the Leys into Sainsburys and look left you see a house overlooking Sainsburys; This was the Stationmasters' house and had his study on the upper floor, overlooking both the goods and passenger stations. The goods shed was in "Two Rivers" industrial estate and was dismantled and rebuilt into offices (you can see the circular window). The coal sidings were to the right side of Two Rivers Ind Estate and there was also a threshing yard run by Wilcox and Frost, the steam engine that worked here "Eynsham Hall" is preserved.
You should visit Ireland and Northern Ireland. We have thousands of miles of disused railway lines and hundreds of disused stations. I think you would enjoy yourself here. I've visited a few stations myself.
I′ll travel no more from Littleton Badsey to Openshaw
At Long Stanton I'll stand well clear of the doors no more
No whitewashed pebbles, no up and no down
From Formby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town
I won't be going again
On the Slow Train.
Someone has probably said this, but this line links several current and former RAF airfields
Every time I see Witney I think of David Cameron and uncontrollably vomit. Which is a shame as the area itself actually looks quite nice.
Would you be interested in donating the revenue from just one of your uploads to a UK non-profit I.T. refurbisher (us)? We use all donations to turn e-waste into life changing internet ready gadgets which we then gift back to the community. We'd send our audience your way in return of course, embryonic as it is. A punt I know, but if you can help us out you'll find all our details on our about page.
Bicycles on footpaths! my late mother (an avid rambler) used to hate that as they chew up the ground so much and create a lot of mud in wet conditions. Excellent video this one. very interesting.
Excellent work as ever, Paul. Thanks for the gentle entertainment, it's very restorative. Well done on your magnificent milestone, many congratulations to you both.
You could come up to Staffordshire and do an episode on the Stafford to Uttoxeter line, plenty of remains still in existence and an interesting history behind them.
This railway is crying to be reopened if not to Fairford certainly as far as Carterton.