Frank Erskine wrote:

We have one of these ram pumps operating in a water museum with which
I'm involved. The pump must be many decades old, and the rubber
diaphragms needed replacement. Although we could've used almost any
old insertion rubber to fabricate new diaphragms, I tried to contact
the original makers, and had no problem whatsoever in getting original
replacements, which promptly arrived in a linen bag, which had a label
attached with a space for the name of the railway station to which the
spares should be delivered!

Nice :-)

I can't remember the manufacturer at the moment; I fancy he was in
Gloucestershire,

One manufacturer of hydraulic rams is Green and Carter
http://www.greenandcarter.com/ but they're in Somerset, not Glos.

but can you imagine getting this sort of service from
a modern pump-maker in, say 50 years time?

I assume that question was rhetorical.

--
Andy