BRUNEL'S iconic image, complete with stovepipe hat and gigantic cigar, peered over Cllr Daphne Watts' shoulder as she cut the train-shaped cake to celebrate the engineer's 200th birthday at Newton Abbot museum last week. She told her audience of retired railwaymen and rail enthusiasts that her husband was a driver from 1945 and familiar with the Great Western Railway. 'The more I looked at Brunel's life, the more astounded I became,' she said. She said that the coming of the railway transformed Newton Abbot from a sleepy backwater to a busy railway centre. By the 1930s-40s it was the town's largest employer, providing work for 1,000 men. Beeching and the closure of many branch lines saw a rapid decline. Cllr Watts used the occasion to press the new franchise company, Greater Western, for better services. 'Let's remind them and remind the government that we are not going to stand for any reduction of services. We want our services maintained and if possible expanded because more and more people are using the railway and I, for one, would like to see more freight on the railway as well.' The Brunel 200 celebrations will be full steam ahead throughout the weekend of May 13 and 14, when a 90m long miniature atmospheric railway and other atmospheric contraptions will be set up in the house and grounds of Old Forde House.