Slough…

Sir John Betjeman once wrote… “Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough“. He was railing against the ‘New Town’ and the loss of the rural idyll. When mud is thrown, it often sticks. I displayed a photo on Twitter last Thursday of a train passing through Slough and one of my friends responded with… “You need a very good reason to go to Slough.” His comment and my reply – “Errr – Lots of freight on divert because of the Didcot-Oxford closure😎- and it’s not as if I was going to leave the station🤣” – says how deeply ingrained that view of Slough is in the English Psyche.

Before I took my trip out to Slough on Thursday last week, I wracked my brains to try and recall when I had last visited the station. The conclusion was sometime in the mid-1970’s – in fact I’m sure it was when I took this photo of 08108 shunting some vans…

…and that was in December 1975. So it’s been a long break between visits. In the past there was never a reason to get off – Far better to continue on to Reading for trainspotting purposes. Would this visit to Slough station prove to be a good one? It should be with a lot of freights diverting via London!

That question was answered almost as soon as I got there – Class 70, 70004, powering through on a diverted Garston to Southampton Intermodal…

…8 minutes down on schedule and the driver clearly seeking to claw back that lost time😎

It was followed not long after by one train that you don’t want to see on a hot day…

…The Northolt to Severnside bin-liner (strong smell of rotting garbage)😒

Slough is served by a mix of GWR semi-fast trains like this class 387…

…and Elizabeth Line stopping services operated by class 345’s…

…in this case 345005 on a Reading to Abbey Wood service. Slough is also a junction and passengers change here for trains to Windsor & Eton Central. Most of the morning there were influxes of tourists, mainly American, on their way to visit Windsor Castle. Their reward for getting as far as Slough? – A ride on a 2-car Class 165 DMU…

…Needless to say, it was standing room only and perhaps GWR should consider either a 3 car unit or doubling up to 4!

Between trains, there’s always time to do some people watching…

…A lot of texting going on😅…And there’s sometimes wildlife to enjoy also…

…This Red Kite was bugging the hell out of the Gulls😅

Lets finish with an unusual train shot – 66564 framed by the station buildings…

…powering through with a Leeds to Southampton intermodal service.

During the course of my 2 hour visit I logged 13 individual freight movements. Then I popped back to Ealing Broadway to get some lunch and logged a further 10 freights – that’s an excellent day’s spotting. The Nuneham Viaduct – cause of all the diversions – re-opened the following day. I guess next time I visit there’ll be half as much freight to see but it will still be worth while for the variety of photographic opportunities👍