A familiar location for present day railway photographers, but long before it became one of the most well known vantage points on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway. This is Hailes, pictured on 7 October 1978. As can be seen from the rusty track, there would be no point waiting for a train to appear, as the last one passed this way a couple of years previously! The GWR had opened Hayles Abbey Halt (note the different spelling) at this spot in 1928, but that had closed, along with all the other stations on the route, in 1960. As can be seen here, all trace of it has disappeared. The track was lifted along this stretch in 1979, and it would be several years before it would reopen as a heritage line, albeit with just a single track.