Just under eleven pence ha’penny for each steam run

No, I ended up paying just over a shilling a run. Below is a first draft of some words I've just written to go with my Saturday use of a SR Area 2 (edited from 4 after a kindly Big Al comment) rover back in 1964. Unlimited steam runs Waterloo-Woking return, and Guildford-Redhill too if wanted.

" . . . .This 24 October rover continued well with another 80 mph run (the first was 64-253); this one with a Basingstoke crew with 34100 on an up local (64-257). But checks approaching Surbiton and at Vauxhall stopped a fast actual start to stop time. Not long afterwards 34001 on the 13.00 from Bournemouth West got a clear road for a nice 28 minute run to Waterloo. I was certainly getting very good value for my ten shillings and sixpence today; good running and on my way to ten runs over the 24.30 mile stretch – just over a shilling a run! A shame I didn’t wait at Woking for the 18.30 Weymouth, 22.24 Woking, as that would have made it eleven runs at, in old money, just under eleven pence ha’penny each! . . ."

The ten runs I did that day in 1964 work out at about at £1.25 each today.

 

Many thanks. My editor's red pen now at work on my book draft!

Bryan

 

I'm just about to put my Area 2 rover runs on 31 October 1964 into my book's Chapter 4 draft. It must be my personal best! 14 steam runs Waterloo - Woking or vice versa, plus one, I assume the 17.00 Waterloo-Sals, not timed as it was a diesel and only used to keep the flow of runs going. And I had a 15th steam run that day as I started on the 06.08 Redhill-Guildford train. I am fairly sure that is the day when, if I had gone up to chat to the crew of 31816 at Redhill they would have given me a footplate ride most of the way to Guildford.

So 15 steam runs for ten shillings and sixpence works out at just under eight pence ha'penny each. Helped because I did wait at Woking off the 20.54 Waterloo for the 18.30 Weymouth that day. And because the critical 2 minute connection between 08.35 Waterloo with the 09.12 Woking worked ok. That must have been a cross platform sprint.

Bryan

 

I wonder how the boundaries of those areas were chosen. A friend and I did a day on area 3. It must have been 1959 because we set off to Waterloo East to catch the 0903 steam train to Sevenoaks.But it was D6503. Then we went back via Bromley to Victoria and then via Standard 4 tank to Oxted where we changed to an H and a birdcage set to go one stop to Hurst Green Halt.What an odd boundary station!