Back before wires. 6 years ago on an afternoon in Slough.

66607 is seen working the 6V94 Earles - Theale loaded cement taken from Farnham Road, Slough. The wires of the GWML electrification have made this view completely impossible today.

The continued travel restrictions during lockdown in the UK have left me, like many of us, turning to our collections of past photographs when we would really like to be out taking new ones. 

One thing this does reinforce is how many of the once mundane scenes which we enjoyed have now been confined to history. 

Back in 2015 when these photos were taken I was well aware that these scenes would soon be gone for good. The location was Slough on the Great Western Mainline- by this stage one of the last locations on the London end of the GWR that had not been electrified. 

Looking the other way from Farnham Road as 59203, recently re-painted into DB Schenker Red hauls one of the many Mendip stone trains that are the staple of this route towards London. Aside from the wires which have rendered this shot impossible, the bridge which the train has just passed under has also been re-built, and the locomotive as well as the Aggregate Industries contract has passed to Freightliner.

Almost exactly 6 years ago, 5th March 2015, on a sunny afternoon these trains were fairly ordinary and the locations probably were as well- many much finer views had already been lost to wires on the Western in recent months and years. I strongly suspected that the reason for my visit was to try (and fail, again) to photograph the thrice weekly Colas steel working with class 56's - certainly looking back I am glad that I didn't pack up and go home having missed the star working. These photographs provide a good record of the end of the time before wires and before Hitachi IET's on the route. A time many of us wish we could go back to and photograph some more. It is now more than 5 years since I have attempted to re-visit any of the locations now blighted with overhead lines on the Great Western.

Taken from Wexham Road, overlooking the AkzoNobel plant, 59102 'Village of Chantry' heads back to the Mendips with empty stone box wagons.