The BeerTrain

From my early years Bashing Crompton's on the Pompey's I had made a number of good friends, many of whom still remain as such today. Indeed most are now part of the 33/1 Preservation Group, which me & Peckham jointly called the first meeting of in 1988, to see if there was enough interest to take up the reigns from the BRCW group which had recently started to go the wrong way. Several people, not living in the South-East, came down to bash every school holiday or end of college term. One of these was Andrew Dzikowskyj, from Edinburgh, who was more normally known as TZ - as most couldn't pronounce his name! He had long told me that he would form a 6LDA (or Class 26) Preservation Group. The 6LDA Group was formed by TZ in 1991 with the aim of preserving a Class 26. I was one of the 1st shareholders in the group, if only amounting to TWO shares after a cancelled 26 tour I had booked on, the money refunded from which I put into the new group. I couldn't really invest mor...

I arose early (ie: before lunch!) on Sunday 22 nd September 1991, trying to work out why I’d set my alarm clock as work was not looming large on the horizon. Then I remembered that I’d spent the previous day bashing Cromptons on the Mule (33202 & 33103 in a pair, to be exact!) and we had figured out that the 08:15 Basingstoke to Paignton was a likely candidate to drop the following morning. So up with, if not the larks, then last night stragglers coming home, for a DEMU from Reading West to Basingstoke. I arrived at Basingstoke to be greeted by 4 other fellows, to-wit: a well known shovel wielding Geordie from Bristol, a New Forest raised Salisbury fitter, friend of all 50 bashers, who would always have a few words to say to him when he removed their fine machines from trains, a fine chap from Duffield currently residing in Woking and well known for his Cannine impressions over the tannoy at that station whenever I was spotted loitering on the platform and finally a ginger haired ...