IN the past this column has not been noted for marking the passage of time with anniversaries, but in 2010 we shall be celebrating the 175th since the inception of the Great Western Railway.

As the first Rail Trail appeared to mark the 150th, in January 1985, it follows that Rail Trail is 25 years old this week.

There are several people I know, and perhaps others, who have been following my railway ramblings since day one, and my thanks are due to them for their loyalty. When Rail Trail started I imagined it would probably run for the 12 months of 1985. But at the end of this period no-one said 'stop', so as there appeared to be no shortage of topics to write about, I just carried on.

And here we are today.

Just recently, I have been writing about my activities during 1958, and during a Christmas with friends, we were looking back over our many years, and discussing which years we considered to have been the best to have lived through.

We both decided the late 1950s were probably the best.

After the privations, for many, of the 1930s, there followed six years of war, followed by getting on for 10 years of 'austerity', so it wasn't until about 1955 things were looking up. Then there was the Suez Crisis, which gave us 12 months or so of petrol rationing.

This was a lifetime for some of our South Devon branch lines, which were already being proposed for closure, but not enough to prevent the axe from falling.

Nevertheless, the main lines were still very busy in the summer and steam still reigned supreme. Dieselisation did not really get going down here in the South West until 1959.

So for this short period, there were plenty of steam trains to record and photograph, and except on summer Saturdays, a freedom of the roads we have never known since. No crash helmets for cyclists or motorcyclists, few traffic lights, no double-white lines in the middle, or yellow lines at the roadside, and in general the traffic did not move at more than about 40mph.

The 1960s were to change all this, as car ownership increased so did the restrictions. Package holidays to the 'Costa Brava' started to attack our holiday trade and on the railway by the end of 1959 most of the regular express trains west of Bristol were in the hands of the new diesel-hydraulic 'Warship' class engines.

Last week, after describing how busy Exeter St David's had been during Saturday August 9 1958, I used a picture of the treble-headed Southern Region train in which the station looked a picture of serenity. So I'll correct that impression this week with a picture taken 25 minutes earlier, at 1.50pm, as the down 'Cornish Riviera Express' came thundering through the station on the 'Through road' at about 55mph, if the driver was obeying the then current speed restriction.