Choo Choo – off to Didcot Railway Centre we go

It’s Bank Holiday Monday and the sun is shining! We love Steam Trains in this house as we discussed in a previous post. So today we decided to visit Didcot Railway Centre, being a Bank Holiday weekend it was going to be a Gala Weekend with lots of running steam trains 🙂

There is a large pay and display car park near the centre that you get directed to – £6.20 was a bit of a sting though! There is then a large up and over railway bridge to negotiate (if you were bringing a buggy/pram, you would definately need 2 of you to get it up and over). You actually enter the centre through Didcot Parkway Railway Station subway. There was a car park on the other side of the road, so that might be a better option for families with small children.

We paid £12.00 each per adult and £10.00 for Monkey. The charges do vary depending on what kind of weekend it is. As I mentioned, this weekend was a full steam gala, so I believe it was at the top end on pricing. I did notice they do family discounts for 2 adults and 2 kids – I hate that! Can we not classify as a family when there are and only ever will be 3 of us? Anyway, a little detail.

We did have a wonderful day, there were a number of steam trains running, so we made the most of the trips from one end of the centre to the other. There was a little miniature railway that you could ride on (a short up and down track) but Monkey and Daddy P loved it. There were lots of static displays, a large engine shed with lots of loco’s to visit. We had a trip on a Steam Railmotor 93 that was used to take passengers to the London Olympics in 1908.

http://www.over40andamumtoone.wordpress.com Didcot Railway Centre

As the Centre is right next to the mainline railway, you get an added bonus. We saw lots of high-speed, normal trains and freight trains for no extra charge!

There is a lovely picnic area near a turntable and static displays. We were busy munching on our lunch when one of the steam trains went right by us – it was wonderful.

http://www.over40andamumtoone.wordpress.com Didcot Railway Centre

There is a cafe area, should you want food, we just bought a couple of drinks for a pit stop in the afternoon. We did walk around the GWT Museum, there were some really interesting exhibits and plenty to keep even Monkey entertained.

All in all, we had a lovely day out in the sun watching the trains go by 🙂