26 March 2017
Goring is one of those South Eastern villages that would probably be quite nice if they weren’t being pulled into the black hole of London, despite the best efforts of the green belt, so that they feel slightly too full with people and traffic and money for their size.
All thanks to Mr Brunel’s Great Western Railway making it an easy commutable distance from the city, of course. And an easy distance to go looking for a sunny summer evening’s viewpoint to shoot.
I wanted to capture the line in the landscape of the Great Western Main Line cutting through the rolling chalk downland of Oxfordshire and Berkshire’s Chiltern Hills in the Thames Valley’s “Goring Gap” upstream of Reading, with Turbos and Voyagers and speeding Intercity 125s crossing the River Thames on Goring Bridge. I’m not sure I quite found the shot I was looking for, but it was pleasant enough searching for it
And I was curious about claims that the newly erected overhead electrification on the line, which will see the elegant but ageing Intercity 125s replaced by electric trains, has spoiled this special beauty spot.
I don’t think it’s the railway that has done that.
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