MADAM - My father was an engine driver, based at Brimscombe from 1949 until 1964 and drove the railcar for several years, until the end of the service.

Our house stood on the hillside at Chalford, overlooking the station, and I remember watching the little railcar drawing into the station behind its high-domed engine, then travelling backwards on its return journey to Gloucester.

It was always well used, carrying shoppers, workers and school children, stopping at each of the many halts along the way, picking up people with bicycles, wheelchairs and prams with ease.

The smuts and smoke would fly through the open windows, depositing grit in our eyes and we often arrived in Gloucester wind-blown and smudged but exhilarated by the speed of the journey.

The length of line between Stonehouse and Gloucester, where there were no stops, was completed at knuckle-whitening speed, the little car rocking from side to side and the whistle blowing.

My father claimed that this was where the drivers liked to race the mainline train from Bristol, as it came alongside at Standish junction.

He told us that he had reached speeds of ninety miles an hour, but I am not sure if that was true.

The only incidents I remember were one when he overshot the halt at St Mary’s, because of ice on the line, and another when he left his guard behind and the poor man had to wave his flag madly as father reversed to pick him up.

The closure of the railcar service was a great loss to the Stroud valleys, when competition from increased car use and comprehensive bus services allowed the Beeching axe to fall mercilessly, despite vigorous protests and many meetings and letters to the local press.

Consultation was still taking place and Anthony Kershaw MP was waiting for a reply from Ernest Marples, the transport minister, when Chalford station was razed to the ground on one night of vandalism in October 1964.

Brimscombe station and Brimscombe engine shed, both designed by Brunel and built of Cotswold stone, later suffered the same fate.

I have deposited an audio history of the Chalford rail car in the archives available at the Gloucester Record Office.

The recording was made in 1967 and consists of interviews and anecdotes recounted by Harold Gubbins, one of the first firemen on the rail car and my father, Walter Green, one of the last drivers.

Judy Newman

Stroud