| Re: Pleasure boats, the Thames, and that tie-in with the railways Posted by Oxonhutch at 22:04, 24th August 2026 |     |
On the Salters's good ship 'Reading' - my daughter's 21st, an evening with food and music - Wallingford - Pangbourne - Wallingford. Wonderful trip, full of memories.
| Re: Pleasure boats, the Thames, and that tie-in with the railways Posted by TonyN at 21:50, 24th August 2026 | |
Over about 5 years in the early 2000s I Travelled from Oxford to Staines on Salters public trips. and also from Runnymede to Hampton court on an ex Salters boat operated by French Brothers.
Staines-Windsor (also did the Windsor-Runnymede bit in 1967 on a school trip)
Marlow-Windsor
Marlow-Henley
Henley-Reading
Reading-Wallingford
Wallingford-Abingdon (This was on a modern plastic boat operated by Salters Due to scaffolding partly blocking the bridge arch at Clifton Hampton. I think it was the last trip as the Captain was doing his last trip before retiring and it was the end of the season)
Abingdon-Oxford (The only public point to point trip Salters still Run)
| Re: Pleasure boats, the Thames, and that tie-in with the railways Posted by eightonedee at 21:30, 24th August 2026 | |
Reading this made me suddenly realise- I've not seen any Salters' "steamers" this year on our stretch of the Thames through the Goring Gap. Checking their website, it seems that they no longer run their Wallingford- Reading route. But on reflection, in recent years these often seemed poorly patronised. No longer any demand for this?
| Pleasure boats, the Thames, and that tie-in with the railways Posted by Mark A at 17:40, 24th August 2026 | |
Article in the Guardian, includes a chapter that's refreshingly honest on skiff camping, and the photo also includes the Salters pleasure boat 'Wargrave', built in 1913, which put me in mind of the passenger services that Salters ran on the Thames, many of which were tied in to railway services, allowing various one way trips to be taken.
At a time when there's likely to be a meticulously researched book on any small facet of the railway system, longer distance pleasure boat services on the Thames are a somewhat unexplored facet of transport. I've never come across a personal account of a trip on the very long running through service between Kingston and Oxford which lasted long after the majority of its passengers had disappeared.
I heard that what finally made this service and others struggle is that there was a change in policy at the Thames Conservancy - previously the Salters boats were given priority passage at locks, which allowed the services to maintain a timetable in the same way that you'd expect a bus or train to turn up on time, but after this was dropped and the services had to queue in turn at the locks, that did away with the punctuality.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/aug/23/my-best-ever-british-holiday
