Swindon - Cheltenham Rail Line improvement.

[Samdy Gray]

Nope, Shaw Tip is sandwiched right between Mead Way and the rail line.

[Samdy Gray]

Oh wait, I re-read and see what you mean now. Yes, the theoretical link road would be the other side of the railway line than the Shaw Tip site.

[Oaksey Moonraker]

Nope, Shaw Tip is sandwiched right between Mead Way and the rail line.

I thought when the whole Shaw Tip site was first proposed there was talk about improving the access with the Sports Village etc and putting a new dual carriageway to come out on Great Western Way by B&Q. I am sure the council at the time would have loved to have got a new ground development to fund this. Remember the big press conference when it was first muted and how much the Council were on board

[Batch]

I grew up in the neighbouring village of Oaksey

Had a good mate from Oaksey. Do you know the McNaught-Davis family?

[Oaksey Moonraker]

Had a good mate from Oaksey. Do you know the McNaught-Davis?

Do you mean Gavin, used to play a lot of football with him when he was younger. We were both a Oaksey playing for the Reserves and Oaksey had a kid playing for the U14's called Charlie Griffin. Didn't come to much!

[Batch]

Yes Gavin. Was in his class at secondary school. Also played a bit of Ciren league footy with him a few years later. Lost touch after he got married to Paula (who was also in our class at school).

Anyway I digress. Didn't realise Griffin was an Oaksey FC alumni. Was he much better than anyone else at that age? I often wonder what happened to a guy called Steve Tucker, he was head and shoulders above everyone at U/16 Ciren Town level. Didn't make it though, not sure how far he got.

Erm, anyway I've derailed the thread now (pun intended)

[Oaksey Moonraker]

Anyway I digress. Didn't realise Griffin was an Oaksey FC alumni. Was he much better than anyone else at that age? I often wonder what happened to a guy called Steve Tucker, he was head and shoulders above everyone at U/16 Ciren Town level. Didn't make it though, not sure how far he got.

Erm, anyway I've derailed the thread now (pun intended)

He was pretty good, confident (even a bit cocky but a good kid) and scored shedloads of goals and was on the books at Bristol Rovers who didn't take him on. Once saved a couple of pens from him in penalty competition when he was 14 (I was 19 or 20) Went onto Chippenham and went on from there

[Arriba]

in hindsight the closure of the railways all over the nation has been a terrible mistake.

batch,i played against steve tucker numerous times.both on saturdays and sundays.
 cricklade and purton on saturdays,and on sundays he played for akers garage.
dunno who he plays for now as i aint played for 6 years.
he wasn't all that imo.

[leefer]

Even Stratton had a station.......can anyone remember the high bridge over the railway line in Ermin Street.....where the Hertz car rental place is.....next to the entry of the Howard Tenens industrial estate.
Can't remember the Stratton Station though.........any one know where the platform was in Stratton.

[Ardiles]

in hindsight the closure of the railways all over the nation has been a terrible mistake.

There's a good book, 'Fire & Steam' by Christian Wolmar, that I read last year about the birth and development of the railways in this country.  Lots of fascinating insights in to how the railways transformed the country from the 1830s onwards...and also goes in to some length about the mid-20th century line closures.

From what I remember, after the initial building boom in the 1830s & 1840s, there was another construction frenzy in later decades that added so many lines that were very little used.  Very often, tiny branch lines built by competing railway companies serving no more than a handful of market towns/villages and following similar lines to those of their competitors.  (A handful of these competing lines have survived - as the very messy and overly complex rail map in SE London/Kent proves.)

By the mid 20th century, most of these tiny branch lines had closed, and I think that's fair enough.  The problem with Beeching is he went too far; a more moderate cull would have been sensible, probably.  Unfortunately, he lived in a period where the motor car was in the ascendancy and car ownership was, in itself, associated with prosperity and economic success.  History has judged Beeching very harshly which, in some respects, is justified.  But he was a product of the time he was living in and back then people obviously regarded his plans with a lot less horror than they do now.

[Spencer_White]

in hindsight the closure of the railways all over the nation has been a terrible mistake.

batch,i played against steve tucker numerous times.both on saturdays and sundays.
 cricklade and purton on saturdays,and on sundays he played for akers garage.
dunno who he plays for now as i aint played for 6 years.
he wasn't all that imo.

I see Steve Tucker almost every day. P&H installer/Builder.

[Arriba]

he played for bassett too.
scored plenty of goals each season to be fair to him.

[Batch]

Thanks Spense/Arriba. I assume its the same guy. Would be 36/37 about now. I am sure he used to play for Purton youth. Haven't seen him in about 20 years mind! Remember he once took the longest time to take a free kick I have ever seen - he moved the ball forward a foot, the ref move it back a foot, he moved it forward a foot...you get the idea. In the end he and the ref had an exchange of views and i think he moved it forward again after the ref turned around

Anywho I guess it shows how much better you need to be to even get to a good standard of non-league footy. Or maybe my memory is playing tricks.

[Spencer_White]

Must be a bit of a footballing fammily because his cousin is Matt Mills, the current Reading captain.

[Reg Smeeton]

There's a good book, 'Fire & Steam' by Christian Wolmar, that I read last year about the birth and development of the railways in this country.  Lots of fascinating insights in to how the railways transformed the country from the 1830s onwards...and also goes in to some length about the mid-20th century line closures.

From what I remember, after the initial building boom in the 1830s & 1840s, there was another construction frenzy in later decades that added so many lines that were very little used.  Very often, tiny branch lines built by competing railway companies serving no more than a handful of market towns/villages and following similar lines to those of their competitors.  (A handful of these competing lines have survived - as the very messy and overly complex rail map in SE London/Kent proves.)

By the mid 20th century, most of these tiny branch lines had closed, and I think that's fair enough.  The problem with Beeching is he went too far; a more moderate cull would have been sensible, probably.  Unfortunately, he lived in a period where the motor car was in the ascendancy and car ownership was, in itself, associated with prosperity and economic success.  History has judged Beeching very harshly which, in some respects, is justified.  But he was a product of the time he was living in and back then people obviously regarded his plans with a lot less horror than they do now.

Think you'll find that a lot of railway historians credit Beeching with in fact saving a lot of the railway system.

Beeching essentially looked at revenues and chopped anything obviously loss making.

Unfortunately for Swindon this didn't take into account potential development, which could have made some of our lost bits at least viable now,