The Didcot Railway Center is located in Didcot, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom. This is about 60 miles west of London and just south of Oxford. While the town of Didcot was found easily enough the Didcot Railway Centre entrance was a bit more devious about its location. Access to the site is through National Rail's Didcot Parkway Station via an underground passage that leads to several platforms. Step down, walk to the end, climb up the stairs, and you will find the entrance gate and ticket office to this old Great Western Railway site.

Easy enough to accomplish if you arrive by train, if by car, then you'll need to park in one of two large parking lots across from the station entrance. Either Julian's Car Park or Station Road Car Park. Upon arrival, not knowing which was best, Julian's was randomly chosen only to find it nearly full. Foolishly, I drove past the entrance parking meters before getting a ticket, thinking there would be more scattered throughout the lot. Eventually I found a space at the rear then had to walk all the way back to the entrance to pay for parking only to discover all the machines were broken except for the option to pay Julian for parking by cellphone, which I didn't have. So, angered, I walked back to my car then drove around to the Station Road Car Park which had serviceable ticket machines that would accept currency. Not a good start to a Didcot Railway Centre self-guided discovery tour.

 
Close to the middle of the nineteenth century a gentleman named Isambard Kingdom Brunel, participated in the inception of the Great Western Railway (GWR), with the intention to connect London, England, with New York, USA, using steamships from Bristol across the Atlantic and a broad gauge railway. The GWR mainline was constructed relatively straight along a line west from London but it deviated to the north for various reasons passing through Didcot and Swindon enroute to Bristol. To make a profit GWR needed to expand with numerous branch lines which included a connection to Oxford and the Midlands. This was one of the reasons to deviate in a northern arc through Didcot, then onto Swindon which eventually housed the GWR's main workshops. The Didcot Railway Centre is located on the site of the former Great Western Railway (GWR) locomotive stabling point.

GWR trackage first appeared at Didcot in 1839 which was the obvious maintenance location for locomotives travelling to Oxford. The original broad gauge wood engine shed was replaced by a steel framed half brick four track run-through shed in 1932 which also included a repair shop, sand furnace, turntable, associated office buildings, and a coaling station. This arrangement remained virtually unchanged until closure in 1965.

In 1967 the Great Western Society took over the closed Didcot locomotive depot from British Railways negotiating a lease valid until 2019. Unfortunately, the lease contained a 6 month termination clause that required the society to vacate the site if required. Over time attempts were made by the society to purchase the site, or better its' position within the terms of the lease. National Rail, the child of British Rail, would not sell but advised the lease could continue. As of 2019 the Society now has an extended lease good for another 50 years.

 
Looking left from the ticket office the first thing you notice upon entering the site is the castle on the hill. Only it's not a castle, but some sort of coaling station. A steeply graded line, for the railway track, leads up to the building while a gondola car rests inside the structure. A tall smoke stack (654 feet high) from the demolished Didcot Power Station complex may be seen in the distance behind the coaling station. A concrete walkway paralleling the tracks heads off in the distance towards the original 1932 four track engine shed. What isn't apparent is that the site continues behind the engine shed where there is a modern maintenance building constructed in 1988, and farther beyond that lies the wooden transfer shed (trans-shipment shed) housing two broad gauge locomotives, "Fire Fly" and "Iron Duke", along with some interesting dual-gauge standard and broad gauge trackage. From the start at the ticket office, to the north end of the site, it's at least a 900 metre walk. Scattered along this route there is plenty to see in the way of heritage steam and diesel locomotives, equipment, buildings, signal boxes, turntable, transfer table, the Signalling Centre, an air raid shelter, G gauge model railway, museum, Refreshment Room, and some smaller original GWR structures. There's even an example of Brunel's atmospheric railway track typically used on Brunel's South Devon Railway including the cast iron traction pipe.

Didcot Railway Centre is entirely surrounded by active railway lines and has no road connection of any kind. Public access is on foot by the pedestrian subway at Didcot Parkway station. Wheelchair access is practically nonexistent as they have to be carried up a flight of concrete steps. Although this contravenes the Disability Discrimination Act, the Great Western Society is unable to improve it, since the site is owned by Network Rail.

 
Unfortunately, on the day of my visit there were no steam locomotives or diesels operational. You will need to consult their calendar to determine which day equipment is operating. The museum utilizes a half mile of track called the Main Demonstration Line to operate trains. This track lies along the east edge of their site from a platform opposite the ticket office, to a platform named Oxford Road Station beside the transfer shed (trans-shipment shed) at the north end of the site.

The following equipment is currently serviceable (September 2019) for operation along the Main Demonstration Line:

• GWR 4-6-0 Ten-Wheeler "Lady of Legend" number 2999;
   
  
• GWR 4-6-0 Ten-Wheeler "King Edward II" number 6023;
   
  
• GWR 2-6-2 Prairie number 4144 (Severn Valley Railway visitor);
   
  
• GWR Steam Railmotor number 93;
   
  
• BR 0-6-0 Hunslet Diesel Hydraulic Shunter number DL26;
   
  
• BR 0-6-0 Class 08 Diesel Hydraulic Shunter number 604;
   
  
• BR 0-6-0 Class 14 Diesel Hydraulic number D9516;
   
  
• GWR Diesel Railcar number 22.

Consult the Didcot Railway Center Locomotives and Rolling Stock List to view their entire list of equipment.
 
Or see the Locomotive Traffic Roster to determine which engine is operating on a particular day.