I never saw trains running here. The last one ran a year before I arrived in Reading. It’s the abandoned railway line, which crosses the meadows. When the tracks and sleepers were taken up the bare ridge of stony high ground exploded with wildflowers. That happened to be the year I first found it. The trains ran for nearly 75 years, bringing goods (and jam!) into and out of Reading.
When I worked for the council I was aware of a barn full of the old sleepers that were being offered around. Some of them were used to build the bridge along the old footpath crossing the meadows and passing beneath the railway line.
They were there until last autumn and they were replaced with sounder timber.
The folks who repaired the bridge left the old sleepers behind and a gang of Marshians swooped on them like hungry vultures.
Uncovering lots of tiny beasties
They cut them into little pieces.
(Not the beasties)
And then dragged them to a shady and dry spot
And exhausted they took advantage of the opportunity to rest their weary bodies.
Refreshed they gathered more wood and headed north through the marsh.
Until they arrived at another dry spot, and one with lovely views
There they set them up and sat upon them.
But even then they weren’t done. They dragged more wood even further north and built another bench.
And there they called it a day. The sun was setting.
But the very next day they returned
This time carrying much smaller wood. Fresh willow twigs. They wandered far and wide
Looking for beavers and planting willows as they went.
Before vanishing into the marsh once more. The next day…. Clouds of steam arose mysteriously and cloaked the meadows. I never got to see the steam from the trains.
But today I was briefly cloaked in a cloud of steam. Was it a ghost train visiting its old haunts, an appreciative gesture to the use of those 100 year old sleepers?
Rural Reading 