THE Royal Victoria Country Park at Netley, next to Southampton Water, is a popular place for walking and relaxing… and near to the tea rooms and chapel is the mile long 10¼ in gauge Royal Victoria Railway, which operates at weekends throughout the year and daily in the school holidays.
![Curwen 2-6-0 No. 4 Isambard Kingdom Brunel heads a passenger train on the Royal Victoria Railway.](https://www.mortonsdirect.co.uk/heritagerailway/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2016/11/HR-222-p37.jpg)
Trains are nearly always hauled by one of the Class 52 Western outline diesel-hydraulic locomotives: indeed, it is very rare indeed to find steam working there as this is usually kept for special occasions and driver experience days. Seeing a steam-hauled train on the RVR has eluded me in the eight years that I have lived in the area.
However, a check on the railway’s website at the start of this autumn suggested we might be lucky on September 25 as a driver experience day was planned, so we set off mid-morning with hopes of at last catching steam.
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