Wessex Electrics: The Last Day

We are not aware of there being any special significance of u2412 "Special Olympics" being chosen for the railtour, however the organisers of the tour took this to be a challenge..... not that there is much rolling stock left working on Network Rail with compartments but the burning question - how many people can you fit into a class 442 first class compartment? - needed to be answered before there are no opportunities left!

(Answer = 23 with some room for more... allegedly)

To celebrate the last day of Wessex Pigs on South West Trains, a cake was provided and was ceremonially cut by organiser Ken. It is not recorded whether the pig had any of the cake.

This is not the first time a celebratory cake has been cut on a Wessex Electric Unit as one was cut (whilst at Fareham) and shared out among passengers during this group's "Coming of Age" railtour on 7th December 1991.

The tour is now returning to Waterloo and is entering Hampton Wick station just before crossing the Thames for the final time of the day.  To take this photo we hope you were on an official break from work, Terry!

Anyone who knows their Hamptons (Middlesex - as opposed to Long Island, USA) will appreciate that Hampton Wick is not adjacent to Hampton, as pictured on the previous page. Hampton Court and Teddington are geographically in between.....

Former SEG webmaster Colin Duff is a Kingstonian born and bred and was therefore hoping for a picture of the tour going through his home town - a shot of it going across the (albeit totally ugly) Kingston Railway Bridge would have been nice. However, the former webmaster was at work on the day of the tour and his contributors aiming to get a shot in Kingston were delayed getting there from their previous location. So this second shot from Terry shows the railtour about to go over Kingston Bridge from Hampton Wick - the buildings in the background are Kingston. Fortunately, the route was not set for the tour to go into platform 1 (bay platform) at Kingston!