Didcot Railway Centre www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk

We took our train-mad 2 year old plus older sister and younger brother to one of the steam days at Didcot so that he could ride on a real steam train. We enjoyed the train rides, although when we first arrived we were not told that the train driver was at lunch so had to wait 30 mins for the first train! We had not taken a picnic but soon wished we had. There were only a couple of choices of hot food, none of which looked appealing, and tasted worse. Also, the 2 main choices were beef stew or liver, which I would imagine to be a limited appeal on a 'family day'. Boxed sandwiches had been freshly made and were reasonably edible although we had to argue in order to get a plain one made for the children. At £3.50 a go I didn't think that requesting one with the filling we wanted (ham) was unreasonable. We also visited the shop which stocked loads of Thomas merchandise, understandably, but it is quite expensive and there was little else on offer. When our 4 year old picked up a ball from a child-height display she was quite sternly told off by the shop assistant and we were told that she was not allowed to pick it up in case she broke a window (she really can't throw that hard!) and that they would not even sell it to her because the have changed supplier and they are no longer suitable for children. Who on earth they expect to sell pink rubber balls to I cannot imagine!

They do run Thomas Days which I assume are more geared towards young children.