AS regards the photo on page eight of the paper dated December 18, I have to tell you, as a taxi driver and rail enthusiast, that the photo is taken from the west side of the Dean Forest Railway looking east up Springmeadow Road in the direction of Primrose Hill.

For two reasons I reckon the photo has been taken in the last 30 years and not in the 1950s.

The height of the trees suggest this and the loco is almost certainly black pannier tank 9681.

The first carriage is a mark one brake second, known as a BSK built between 1951 and 1962 and in 1960s maroon livery.

Most of the Dean Forest Railway’s carriages are mark ones.

Passenger trains north of Lydney stopped running in 1929 though excursion trains did run until the early 1960s.

However, back in the 1950s, pre-1948 carriages would have been preferred on excursions as mark ones were very rare.

On preserved railways, including the Dean Forest Railway, trains are most likely to be mark ones as pre-1948 carriages are now very difficult to obtain.

– Paul Mear, Chepstow.