 I'm literally now in someone else's garden. Hello, thank you for joining me. You can see where I am. I'm at Twyford. Today we're going to do another episode of Branch Line Britain. We're going to do the Henley branch as the sign shows. That way is looking towards Reading and West Country, and that way is looking towards London. The Henley branch platform is down the other end of the platform, so we're going to have a look at that in a minute. We're starting down here because this, believe it or not, this station used to be the western terminus of the Great Western mainline. Back in 1839, then 1840, the line was extended to Reading. In Twyford, the village of Twyford was the nearest railway station to Henley-on-Tems. Well, the Henley-on-Tems is on the other side of the River Thames, as we'll find out later. So the town of Henley-on-Tems seemed a very obvious place to build a branch line to. Quite a fashionable town, and the people of Henley-on-Tems, you know, wanted to be put onto the railway map. So what happened was the Great Western Railway obviously wanted to build the railway, and in 1846 they put forward a bill to Parliament, but Parliament rejected the bill. So they tried again a year later in 1847. This time the bill was accepted, but nothing happened with the construction of the railway. The Great Western Railway didn't have a lot of spare funds. This was due to railway mania building, so many other lines. They just sort of didn't have the spare funds really to build this little line, even though it was something they wanted to do. So what happened was that people of Henley began to get a bit skeptical as to whether they would ever get this railway. So they held a meeting in 1852, and they agreed that they would put forward £15,000 towards the building of the railway. Eventually construction started, and the line opened in 1857. So we're going to walk up there now, walk through the station and have a look at the branch platform. Obviously this would have all been broad gauge once. You can see when you look at the bridges back there how they are slightly wider than they really need to be. It was an XC2C unit passing through. There was a Great Western unit behind there, class 387s. So yeah, this would have all been broad gauge, and the Henley branch would have been broad gauge. It was one of the last railways built to broad gauge, but it did run for a number of years as a broad gauge service. A little 242 tank engine would have worked the first train to Henley. We'll talk about some of the intermediate stations on the way because they weren't there from the opening day. I think it is a really rather pleasant station. The footbridge, although it looks and blends in quite nicely, it's not the original. I remember when they took down the original one and replaced the current one to provide lift access. It's a nice station in that there's no ticket barriers. You can just walk in and out. Quite a lot of people use the footbridge to get to that part of Twyford over there. I remember there used to be an HST that used to stop here some evening, so I used to sometimes come and see that. That's platform four, Elizabeth line. Elizabeth line. And this is the Henley branch on platform five. So, yeah, the Elizabeth line now serves here, although they only get to London Paddington and they don't yet run through the tunnels to Abbey Wood. If you want to see the lines for Abbey Wood, have a look at link on screen now. That's me riding the Elizabeth line on the first day. Interesting, each side of the cafe. The signs. They're still in the first Great Western delivery, which is now known as Great Western Railway. So there we are, Twyford, Wargrave, Ship Lake, Henley on Thames and the Thames Path. Although this isn't specifically a video on Thames Path, we will be doing some of the Thames Path today. So the way Branch Line Britons works, if you haven't watched the two previous episodes of Branch Line Britain, well, there's an Elizabeth line train pulling in. 3-4-5-008, that's going to ready. If you haven't seen a Branch Line Britain video before, I mean, it is only episode three. The way it works is I walk the branch line as in I follow the line where I can go as near as I can come back on the train. It's not going to be so easy today due to the fact that there's very few public rights of way on this side of the Thames. This side of the Thames is Berkshire. The other side of the Thames is Oxfordshire. So the line's half in Berkshire, half in Oxfordshire. So crossing the Thames, I cannot do on foot unless I walk the way to Henley on Thames. So we'll get on to that bit. We'll get there's another way under Tarsing Street. An unusual thing about Twyford Station is you can actually exit off the end of the platform. So this is the, it's obviously the Henley branch. Then there's the connecting line between the main line and you can actually walk down here and cross this Parrow Crossing. It's one of very few places that, you know, you can cross a running line. But so few trains actually come on and off here. The line is worked by class 165s, which we also saw on the last Branch Line Britain video, which was quite a while ago when we did the Greenfield branch. The 165s, they've lost their work on the main line to these trains and the 387s, but they do still work the branch lines. So after the branch line going off towards Henley, let's go and explore some more of it, all the minutes of the 387 passing call. So the branch trains arrived. I'm out at the front station now. I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna walk into the Village Centre and we'll have a quick look because I do like to point out some of the few things there is in these villages. So the train's sitting there. Only sits there for about three minutes. I'm gonna follow that sign there to the Village Centre. I'm just gonna see what is in the centre of Twyford. I'm gonna just come down Station Road and we're just coming into the centre of Twyford. Parrish Church is just down now and the Village Centre is up here. So it's a fairly pleasant little village. I've been here a few times over the years. Usually if I'm watching trains, it's somewhere quite pleasant to stop and go for a walk afterwards, get a cup of tea. You know, it's a weight trove, it's a costar, all those usually sort of things. The only problem is you can be a bit, driving through it is always traffic, these lights. So usually if I'm just passing through, I try and avoid driving through the Village Centre because there's various other routes you can take. But other than that, it's quite pleasant. But it's even got a model shop I noticed which is always nice to see. Wait in there, there's a few model trains to sail. Although I really do not really modelling anymore, but you know, those of you who do, good to know it's here. So we're just coming into the main crossroads now of the Village Centre. What I'm going to do, I'm going to continue up this road here, Wargrave Road, up towards Wargrave, which is the next station on line. So I'm going to walk quite away from the railways. They can't really follow the railway to Wargrave and we'll have a look around there and then we'll continue north towards Henry. Just crossed the A4, the London to Barth Road. Looking towards Barth, looking towards London. A few miles up that way is the Village of Noel Hill where there's a very interesting abandoned narrow-gauge railway. If you want to know about that, have a look at link on screen now. I'm going to follow this public right away, past all what appears to be a load of polytunnels growing strawberries and I'll follow this way towards Wargrave. So I'm just now making my way into Wargrave Finish Centre. Had quite a pleasant walk across the Strawberry Farm. I probably could have just come straight along this road because it looks like there probably was a path all the way, but I hadn't been this way before. I do like a good long walk. So we're just coming in a bit like twice, but there's traffic lights, but the village here, the streets are really narrow, so they do really need them. It's a very pleasant village. It's quite nice with the travel, I should get every now and then gap from the cars. You can see all the flags have been up recently for the Queens Platinum Jubilee. So it's a very pleasant little village. The Station Road is actually just down there, but I'm probably going to make my way that way down past the church and I'll find my way to the station down there. So I've made my way down Station Road from the village of Wargrave towards Wargrave Station. Now, interestingly, when the line opened, the only intermediate station provided was Ship Plate, which we'll see fairly soon. The Great Western Railway decided that the pleasant village which we just saw of Wargrave didn't need a railway station, but the villagers didn't agree. So after a bit of lobbying in 1900, the railway station opened. Here we are, here's Wargrave Station. So we're going to go and have a look. It's got quite a lot of nice flowers and everything. Looks nicely decorated, but it's not going to be as it would have originally been, because, well, the line was originally broad gauge. By the time this station opened, the broad gauge had come and gone. So you could never get on a broad gauge train here. In 1896, the line was doubled. Still no railway station here. When they eventually did open a railway station, it would have looked a bit different than it is today. It's a little ticket machine here in the waiting shelter. There would have been a full station building about here somewhere. You can probably, that might even just about mark out the footprint, that line in the tarmac. There's that bit of concrete below it seems to sit slightly higher. So we go on to the station, and there's not a lot here now. It's looking up towards Henley. She says trains to Henley. No, it says trains to Reading, Twyford, and London. So that's looking that way, back to Twyford. So somewhere, there'd have been a footbridge here, and the second platform would have been along there, but that, the line was singled in 1961, and it was reduced just to what it is now. Now, the interesting thing here is, I said I was going to walk the line. It's a bit complicated here. It's just up there. Here's the River Thames. If they run a replacement bus service on this line, they can't serve the stations in order. So a bus could say start at Henley, it could go to Ship Lake, but then it's got to cross the river to get to Wargrave, or to get, and then to get on to Twyford, or if it started at Twyford, it could come here, then it'd have to go to Henley before it gets to Wargrave. That also means I can't just walk to Wargrave without going to Henley. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to get on the train and go to Ship Lake, and then at Ship Lake, I'll walk down to the Thames River Bridge, which is just there. So we're on a slight bit of gradient here, getting the line up to go over the Thames River. It's about the only gradient. When I get to Ship Lake, we'll walk down and we'll have a look at the bridge. It's not the original, and then we'll follow the Thames up towards Henley. So the train just passed through heading towards Twyford. I've just found this information board here, showing some heritage of the railway station. So you can have a look there. You can see what the station would have looked like when it had two platforms. That's how it looks in latter years, for DMU and just one platform. You can see the station builders for us demolished. There's the bridge or the original bridge, which we're going to cross soon, but we're going to cross to replacement. That'd be the original wooden bridge. And down here, get a nice view of the station with its footbridge. There's also a plan there, showing how it would have been. So there'd have been a siding with the double tracks. If we go back out into the car park, I'll explain. So saying, as I said earlier, this is the site of the old station, ticket office and everything. There'd have been a waiting room just there. And I'm fairly sure this area here is the footprint of the station building. And there'd have been a siding up there. And there'd have been a siding coming down here to unload goods facilities on and off the goods trains. But then when the line was singled, the goods trains would have been withdrawn as well. Steam did work up and down, obviously for quite a while. So into the sixties, it'd have been a pannier tank with possibly one or two carriages, but then it became dieselised and they ran DMUs. Although there were up until about mid sixties, there'd still been some steam haul trains through to London, usually hauled by maybe a haul or a castle class. So that had been quite exciting. Then even fairly recently, there was always through a few through trains a day to London with 165s and 166s. But when the Great Western Main Line was electrified, that effectively put a stop to that. This line currently isn't electrified. There is talk of electrifying it, but whether that will happen, I don't know, it's effectively paused, but it probably will happen. It's just a case of when rather than if. The other interesting thing I would think would be, if they could run one or two through trains to London, run an 800 or an 802, because it could run on diesel and then run through to London. But as far as I'm aware, I don't think any of the Hitachi trains have ever come up this branch. So I'm just gonna wait here at this pleasant quiet station for my class 165 to take me over the river to Ship Lake. So here we are, just boarded the train at Wargrave. I'll be able to show you the crossing the river tents. It's interesting that I was looking on the map just how close Wargrave and Ship Lake are. Although, well, the villages are actually a mile or so apart, but the tents is in the middle, and this is the only way you can cross. So what we'll do, when we come back down to the bridge, the bridge is basically in Wargrave. And as I said earlier, we are currently in Markshire. Very soon we'll be in Oxfordshire. And it's a former double track bridge, even though it's not the original. So we are currently on the, yes, the bridge starts now, we're actually on the tent. We're on the current, what would have been the up line? The down line would have been just over there. So yeah, here's the tents. Have a look over here. You should just be able to see, as we cross the tent itself, you can just see the post from the original bridge. But my plan is, I don't know how much we'll be able to see, but we'll come down and walk underneath this bridge. So here we are. We have crossed the tents, we're now in Oxfordshire. So I'm going to walk down there. We'll have a look. We're going to, very soon, come into Ship Lake Station, which is a station that I've been to, or have been to Wargrave Station in the past. I can just feel the rest slowly going down. This is, as I said, the only gradants on this line really are to cross the river. We are now approaching Ship Lake. So we're coming into Ship Lake. It's nice and cool on these one, six times, the air conditioning. There's a nice view out over there. The tent runs, and when you can see it, when there's no bushes in the way, runs along there, but we'll see all of that when we go for a walk. But yeah, the air conditioning does make these trains quite nice to come and sit on a whole day, just the way of cooling down. Another interesting thing is this train has first-class accommodation options. My plan was to sit there, but there was already people sat there. But according to real-time trains, this train doesn't have first-class accommodation, so it basically means if you buy a standard-class ticket, you could sit in first-class, because they don't do first-class on this line, although when I went to buy the ticket, there was the option to buy a first-class, and it cost 10 pounds. So I don't know if anyone actually has performed a first-class ticket from Allred to Ship Lake to 10 pounds, but personally, I think it'd be a bit of a waste of money. I think I've put on this window, they've put sort of a medicine card to you out, but not on that one. I don't know why that is. If anyone does know, please do comment and tell me. So we'll get out here. It's my first time at this station. We'll have a little watch-trained depart, and then we'll continue to set back down to the region and towards Henley, so let's get out. It's on the train. Here we are. This is a nice old station, so I'm going to have a look at it in a minute once the watch-trained go. So when this was double-line, I believe it had, well, it did. It's fairly obvious it had an island platform. You can see that clearly. I've heard how we wouldn't have been there. So there's our train that we've just come on. The gates have gone down, so if the train can now depart, you can hear the noise of the gates. So we'll watch the train go, and then we'll go back and have a look at the station. That big orange camera there, that must be to stop anyone who's only a half-hour crossing, anyone who's silly enough to try and drive through. That'll be cool, anyway. There goes our train, the three-car unit. Sometimes it'll be a two-car unit. There's another one of those cameras there. When the Henley Regatta's on, they usually run two together, so they'd run six-car units, because it's, well, especially when it's a two-car train, you look a little bit lost on these long platforms. The platforms can accommodate up to six carriages. There was a station building here. I understand it burned down, well, a long time ago in the late 1800s, which was a bit of a shame. So there's a ticket machine, not a ticket office. Nice old station sign there, same, Ship Lake. All the stations on this line, unless you count Twyford, none of them have bridges, because basically they don't need to. It's a flat place. There's not really much of an embankment, apart from what we saw. It's across the Thames. This is really nice. All these sort of flower beds, and that's an old station sign. So yeah, it's very easily accessible. Look at that, it's really nice. Four more stations will like this. The only thing with this is you don't get a very interesting variety of trains passing through. This reminds me of how Taplos used to be. I go to Taplos station quite a lot when charter trains come through, because it's a good station. It's not as good as it used to be. It now has ticket barriers, although to be fair to staff, I've always been very pleasant and let me on. But it's not quite how it used to be. It used to be such a pleasant station. Didn't have any trees quite as big on it. They always had nice flower beds. I think it has got some now, but it just used to be a really nice country station. Now it's kind of become, you know, well, it's a little bit like a station. This is interesting. DMU 30 miles an hour, but there's a 10-side. So it basically doesn't fall out like a multiple trains coming up here, although I should think it's very rare. It has happened. There've been one or two overnight charters, buffer-puffer charters. They had trains that got them down for infuse just up and down all the lines. They've been done at night. That's interesting. There's a exit to the station there. It also appears to be a footpath running along there, beside the line under it. It looks like it crosses the line up here. I wonder if that's an exit up there. So it's quite a pleasant station, this bit different. If they ever wanted to run more trains, they potentially could reinstate the passing loop. That would mean demolishing that house. I doubt they ever would, but, or maybe it'd be easier to put a passing loop in at Wargrave. I don't know if that demand would ever come. I'm intrigued to know whether they would electrify the line ever. Oh, now this is interesting. That footpath crosses there. So there's nothing to say don't exit the station here. So I'm fairly certain this is class doesn't exit to the station, so I wouldn't normally do this. Walk off the end of the track, but here you clearly can. And that's the platform down there. So the footpath goes that way. So I'm gonna have to go that way to find the bridge. I'm just gonna go this way. Now I want to check. So basically, no one should walk down there. But if you come along, you can enter the station here. We'll check both ways, nothing's coming. I know nothing is coming because the train went that way, but still good practice to check. And then down here we get quite a nice view off the station. It'd be a little fun to have time today, but to see the train depart from here, especially if it was like an interesting train, it'd be quite nice. Nice to run like an old, at least run class one, two ones. I used to travel on a one, two, one on the Prince of the World branch. It'd be quite nice if they could run one of them up and down here. Talking of running specials, I think they did run steam up here in the 90s, a two MT top and tail with I think class 37. I certainly wasn't around to see it, but I know it has been done. But I think that was when there wasn't a Sunday service on the branch. So they could do that. I shouldn't think that'd ever happen now, so it's not like they can put an easy replacement bus service on. This footpath here must go out into a road. So I think I'm going to, yeah, what I'm going to do is I'm basically going to leave this section of the video here. I'm going to follow the road around and get one last view off the station platform. There's other exit there. So it's got three entrances and exits for a very small station. Come out into this road here. I'm going to walk back to the front of the station and then we'll walk down and find the bridge over the Thames. So now about half a mile away from Ship Lake Station, I'm going down the strangest footpath ever. I'm literally walking through someone's garden. I just went across the patio, but it did say public footpath. I must be getting near the Thames. Yeah, so look, footpath. So what was here then? Go up here and, oh, okay. So look, it says footpath here. I think I've got to go through into somebody else's garden. I'm literally now in someone else's garden. We found the river, all right, but I'm in someone's garden. Bit strange. And then there's another sign here. It says, please shut the gate, but it says public footpath. So I go through here. I'm in someone else's garden. This is the weirdest foot I've ever been down. There must be some distance from the railway because I can't see it. I'm not sure where I should and shouldn't go. I'm not going to go out there because that possibly is private. I think I have the right to walk through these gardens, but I don't think I have the right to just go wandering around. There's actually a garden over there. Someone's got a lot of money, lives here. Got all this money, and yet I'm allowed to just walk through their garden, as I please. Okay, so, and then through into what I suppose we can assume is going to be somebody else's garden. Hopefully there's no dogs running around. Shut the gate. So, yeah, we are now in someone else's garden. This is just weird. Anyway, we're supposed to be looking for a railway bridge. I came this way. Interestingly, despite being next to the Thames, this isn't the Thames path. The Thames path, perhaps more sensibly, runs along in front of those houses, but I saw this path on the OS map and thought I'd go this way, so I must go through here. And I'd say this looks more like a footpath. So that way we'll go join the road and this way is, yeah, a bit narrow. More people's gardens, maybe. Yeah, I just thought I wasn't gonna go through anyone else's garden, here we are. I don't normally just go walking through people's gardens, but when footpath actually takes you that way, oh, there's the railway bridge. Through another gate, what's this, the sixth or seventh person's garden I've just randomly walked through. There's the railway bridge. That's what we've come to look for. And as I go into yet somebody else's garden by the Thames, we can see, well, back there is Ship Lake Lock. And so Wargrave Station really isn't far away now. Probably, you know, these houses live, their closest railway station, as the crow flies, is Wargrave. We're going into somebody else's garden. No, the gate will open, oh, it opens this way. Yeah, so these people's whose gardens I'm just walking through, their nearest railway station is Wargrave. But they, unless they wanna go, they'd have to swim or get a boat because there isn't any way to get there. They have to go to Ship Lake, like I've done. Yeah, I'm going to someone else's garden. This gate looks like it's about to fall apart. Right, and this house is in the process of being either built or rebuilt or renovated. Not questionable. And say that, as I go into somebody else's garden, I have never seen such a weird footpath stop and have a swing, but I won't because I don't think my right to, don't think I have the right to just use the facilities in people's gardens, but I do have the right to walk through them. Now where? Okay, I mean, some really expensive houses being built and they've got the railway bridge. Now, while I was thinking, I don't know if the people here would agree with me, but you can clearly see now how the bridge would have been double track. I'm glad this path exists because I wouldn't have been able to bought you here. Show you this. How pretty expensive those houses. Anyway, yeah, so it'd be quite cool if they could put the second span back and put a public footpath on it and make crossing the river easier. But I don't know if they will at the moment. Basically, if you want to cross the river, you need to go by train, but tomorrow is not ferry service. This gate going to take me to someone else's garden. I wonder if I'm bumped into anyone else's. Anyway, with the main objective to be achieved while coming this way, we found the bridge and see the spans which would have carried the second track. So actually, the abutments are still there, but the bridge itself isn't all. Look at that, that's quite cool. So the bridge extends quite a long way above the flood plain as well as just underneath the Thames or over the Thames rather. And then, oh, at this point, the Thames path rejoins. So that path going that way, that's the Thames path. And then the Thames path goes this way. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to follow the Thames path around and then we're actually going to end up back crossing the railway line and end up at Ship Lake again before we can continue any further on the Thames path. Incidentally, one day, my intention is, I don't know when I say this every year, I want to walk the whole of the Thames path and make a video. Oh, just to prove my point, look, over there, well, the camera's probably not picking up, but just there is the Tower of Wargrave Paris Church. So basically, we're much, much here at the Wargrave than we are at Ship Lake. I can see boats right over there around that field. So I'm going to follow the path around and I'm going to end up back at Ship Lake before we continue walking north to Henley. I'm now walking along a rather pleasant section of the Thames path. I'm in Oxfordshire, over there is in Berkshire. Now, I don't want to talk too much about the Thames itself because that is for when I do the Thames path, but because one of the main subjects of today's video has been crossing the Thames. There's something rather interesting here. The Thames path comes to a bit of an abrupt end or at least running beside the Thames it does and it heads in land back towards the railway. They used to be a ferry here called the Lashbrook Ferry. I think that cottage over there is built on the site of the ferry cottage. It ran until about 1953 because landowners, just as they are today, wouldn't let people cross their lands. So there was no towpath. So you'd go across on a ferry and then continue on that side for about a mile or so and then you'd get to Bowlney Ferry. There's an old map here. So we've basically just come along here. You could have crossed there, continued on that side and then gone back onto this side. It doesn't look as though there's a path. There's just more expensive houses. I'm now going to continue inland. I can just see another railway bridge here. So we'll go and have a look at that when we get a bit closer. I've now come away from the Thames on the Thames path. This is that bridge I could see in the distance. It's a rather low bridge to walk under. I'm going to have to duck to go under. I think the reason the railway is on this bridge here is to carry it by the flood plain. You can see there's watercourse just there. So yeah, it's a low bridge. It's not the lowest bridge I've ever been under. If you want to see that bridge, have a look at the link on screen now. Oh, and the abutments again clearly show how it was once a double track bridge. But yeah, quite a low bridge to walk under. And the Thames path now seems to be going in the wrong direction. You can just see through the hedge into a private garden. I can't just go walking through a watercourse. So expect if I was to come down here after a lot of heavy rain, I might need waders. So I'm quite glad it's a nice summer sunny day. This path now will take me back around someway. It seems to be a very literally round the houses route back to Ship Lake, but that's the way it's gonna go. And have a look here to see the end abutment for that bridge. And again, you can clearly see it was built for double track. So I'm gonna follow the path around back to Ship Lake. Just stopped for a pint in Lake Savile Arms, which was very pleasant after walking in the hot sunshine along the Thames path. It's now cooled down a bit as we get into the evening. We're just passing Ship Lake station again. I've still got a few more miles to walk though, because I've got to walk all the way to Henley. This is actually the Thames path, although we are a quarter of a mile or so away from the Thames, as we've mentioned before, the Thames path comes inland. Back to the idea of they have to reinstate the passing loop. This car would have to move, this part of the car part would go. That house would have to be demolished, and then you'd have a pass loop again. I don't think that'll ever happen. So I expect when the line was singled, British Rail would have sold off that bit of land and that house was built. It doesn't appear to be a train coming, so we'll cross the line, giving us a view of Ship Lake station. And that was looking towards Henley. As we get to here, there's a sign saying Thames path, so Thames path down there. So we're gonna go down here and look for the Thames and continue towards Henley. As I walk along the Thames path now, I've come to a rather unexpected surprise, railway line, miniature railway line. It's clearly in someone's garden, but seeing as I can see it from the footpath, I thought I'd show it. I wonder if they have any open days. I mean, if they don't, that's fine, but look, there's a junction going off there through the roses. It feels very exciting. So, you know, I'm not tempted to hang around and see if the train comes along, but I somehow don't think they would. But yeah, you don't always expect to find these things. And there's a lot of private miniature railways hidden away that you'd never know. But seeing as this one, you can literally see it. I just had a train, but I think I was on the Henley branch over the fence. I thought I'd show it. I'm gonna continue now. The railway line disappears away down there. Yeah, I can hear a train that's clearly on the main line. But yeah, I'd love to ride it, but I don't know if they ever do any public garden days because off disappears off down there into the gardens. I'm going to continue this way and find River Thames. I'm now rejoining the River Thames. River Thames is just here. So I'm following the Thames path that way toward Henley. So I'm gonna look at the Thames. That's interesting. What's on the other side? There's like a fairly modern, thin wall. When it looks like a tunnel just going into the hill. I'm intrigued to know what that's about. But anyway, this is the River Thames. I'm gonna continue following it downstream towards Henley. So here we are. We have now reached Henley on Thames. Very pleasant affluent town, which this branch line serves. It's interesting to note that the line there was talk of extending it beyond Henley on Thames to Marlow. And that was no doubt provided the station at Hurley and then collected up with the Marlow branch. But quite how it would have worked, I'm not sure because it'd be easier to build rowing on the other side of the Thames. But the Marlow branch is also, or Marlow station, I should say, is on this side of the Thames. The Marlow branch does also cross the Thames, but Marlow branch is a video for another day. And of course, the Marlow branch is not fully intact. The line as far as Born End is the stub of a through route. There's a petrol station for boats there, or maybe diesel, a big pleasure boat there. So that's one of those, what might have been the line being extended from here to Marlow. The main reason it didn't happen is that the Leander rowing club, not Leander, the steam locomotive, but the Leander rowing club, depending on Thames, vehemently opposed the idea of the line. It's a nice boat there, running through to Marlow. So if you want to go to Marlow, best way now is to get a bus or follow the Thames path, or maybe get a boat. There is one that runs between the two. This is Station Road here. In fact, I think the railway station is just around here. So while we're here, nice old porch there, not really my formal classic car, but nice to see a classic car. And yeah, so we are close to the railway station, but I say closest. It's just up here. We have a little look at Henley on Thames. I'm probably going to go and find a pub and have dinner, I think, and before I get the train back to Twyford, which is going along here. And station, the station. So the line basically survives to its full length. I think Henley on Thames station has been slightly altered over the years. It would have once had one of Brunel's wooden train sheds, which not many survived. There's one at Froome and an episode, future episode of Branch Line, which perhaps will do the Chorzing Wallingford Railway. They've got the old train shed from Maidenhead, which again links us back to the Marlow branch. As I said, Marlow branch is a video for another day. I think we're very close to the station. Now it's been a while since the last came here. I came to the Royal Regatta a few years ago. I came on the train. The train was very busy. And a friend of mine was running a stall there. So we camped here. It was quite fun. And the next day I got the bus to Highwick and went home that way. Yeah, railway station. It's just around here. So I think the railway station would have been here or at least the buffers would have been here. You can see the modern station building and ticket office, which dates from about 1985. There is something left to see of the original station. Here, where the modern office stroke flats are, would have been the original wooden train shed, which I just mentioned. And then, as I said, the line was cut back. So I can't recall it, it's just slightly pruned a little bit by, yeah, not even 100 yards. That's Henry on Thames station ticket office. So we're going to go and have a look. I just see the end of the awnings about every minute. We walk through ticket office, always it closed. It looks closed, yeah. So we'll go around here and have a look at the station. It must be the way in here. This may have probably been a good yard. Or at least part of this would have been a good yard once. Oh yeah, we accessed the station here. So as you can see, part of the original awnings survived. Probably the only overhead structure left on the whole branch. But the track itself ends there. We walk down here, walk, have a look. So I think there'd have been two platforms. So there'd have been another platform there. And as I said, the station was further back that way. So we're effectively standing on what was once a bay platform. But the inevitable car park has taken over the other platform and the good yard. So it's quite a long platform. But it's probably only really during regatta days that you get anything longer than three cars come up here. Interesting to see what happens once the 165s gradually disappear. There's talk of battery powered D stock trains or D trains on the Greenford branch, possibly the Marlowe branch, and whether it will be electrified in the future, only time will tell. We'll have to wait and see. The Marlowe branch, I'll keep going back to the Marlowe branch. We'll do a video on the Marlowe branch. The Marlowe branch won't be electrified or at least not in full for the time being due to the fact that you can only run a two car train to Marlowe, but that is for when we do Marlowe branch. I wanna walk you into the platform, just so I've been there. It's a zone six. So if there is a, that would be probably about the length of two 165s. You probably could run more than, pretty could run three 165s to create a nine car train. But they wouldn't fit in the platforms the other stations. Another interesting that might happen is the, what were class 319s now, what are they, their electric and diesel. I cannot think what class some of it's coming on stream now. They potentially could run up here. The reason why we walked to the end is because this, I think must have been an old station sign, saying Henley on Thames, which seems to have lost its station signage. And yeah, not much better on that side. Someone needs to come along and paint Henley on Thames. Another interesting thing about this station is when it was first opened, it was just plain Henley. The reason they needed to add the on Thames suffix was when Henley and Arden up in Warwickshire opened. And then, you know, say if you were in London, then you said, could I have a ticket to Henley please? They might not know which Henley you meant. So they had to, you had to be more specific whether you wanted Henley on Thames or Henley and Arden. Anyway, I'm gonna wait for the train to come to take me back to Swyford now. I'm just departing ship plate now. I'm sitting in declassified first class. It's quite pleasant. Don't get any perked or anything, but you know, just slightly more comfortable seat. And seeing as I can do it on a standard gauge ticket. Oh look, that's that low bridge we went under four miles as well. It's quite fun now when you ride back when you've walked to line, you sort of look out and think, oh yeah, I was there earlier, I remember seeing that. And then soon we come up to that really rather amusing footpath that went through everyone's garden. And then over there, you might be able to see there's the field we walked along. It's good by trees now, and the river is over there. We're gonna shortly cross the river. So again, we are now with, I suppose what's an up train on the up line. You can clearly see the formation where the down line would have been. It'd be interesting if they ever had extended it through tomorrow, if it ever had, you know, survived to this day, but we'll never know. There's the bridge, we're on the bridge now, but as I said, it crosses a few, it's a land first. And then, yeah, down there, there's the gardens, which we walked through, there's the river. Now we're back in the market. I'm gonna continue enjoying the journey back to Twyford, where the video will finish. So here we are back at Twyford. I've had a good time exploring the Henley branch and riding on this class 165. If you wanna ride the Henley branch yourself, it's very easy to get to. Elizabeth Line now serves Twyford. Well, the station's still managed by Great Western Railway, but you can clearly get here easily from London or Reading for that matter on an Elizabeth Line train. So why not come on the train to Twyford, catch the little branch line train up to Henley, maybe get out of Wargrave or Ship Lake and explore those stations or walk along the Thames Path. It's a very pleasant, obviously it's a very flat walk, so it's not too strenuous. So I hope you enjoyed this video from the Bay Platform at Twyford Station. Thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment. Goodbye.