9 Aug 09 - Pentney Park Railway

Pentney Park is a holiday campsite, roughly halfway between King's Lynn and Swaffham on the A47. I've driven past there dozens of times and never suspected that a little gem of a railway was hidden within....welcome to the Pentney Park Railway (PPR)....

The PPR is an elusive little devil. This weekend was the only weekend of the entire year in which trains would be running on its narrow tracks. Information is scarce about the PPR and we consider ourselves fortunate to have written to them a while ago, and received a reply, with details of this weekend's opening, last week (thanks to Bryan Webster).

I'm not sure if any trains or engines are housed permanently at Pentney. Their engine shed is roomy enough, but it seems that members of the engine-owning fraternity gather on rare occasions and bring their pride and joys with them. I had a particularly long and enjoyable chat with some chaps from the Evergreens Miniature Railway, which is located in Stickney, near Boston in Lincolnshire. We were even invited to visit them as special guests, an offer which we shall definitely take up. You can check their railway out at their website:

http://www.steamingalan.webs.com/

Today there were about six or seven engines of various sizes and types all taking turns to haul passengers around the track. It's rather incongruous to be chuffing through a campsite, past people snoozing in deckchairs or wringing out their smalls to hang on the washing line! The track is quite long, I'd guess maybe a kilometre in total, and includes a small bridge which marks the start of the loop at the furthest point from the station.

This really was great fun! The drivers have several engines out on the track at any one time, which means you're often involved in what seems like a chase. The cost was a mere £1 per person per ride, which is all donated to charity after the weekend.

We'd highly recommend keeping an eye out for the next time the PPR is in operation - we'll be going back and we hope we'll see you there!

Just When You Thought....

Just when you thought you had you list of railways sorted.....


We had "finally" settled on a list of sixteen railways. And we've done eight, so it will be a tough ride to reach the target.



But then John Mason, of the Barton House Railway, emails to let us know that there is another miniature railway at Hemsby, and there may be yet another at Holt station of the North Norfolk Railway!


This list just keeps on growing!

5 Aug 09 - Wells Harbour Railway

Welcome to the Wells Harbour Railway!

　

Our second railway of the day found us beside the football ground of Wells Football Club (“The Seasiders”) to ride on possibly the only Straight Line track of our entire adventure. The WHR links the main part of Wells with the beach and lifeboat station, which are about one mile apart.

This is an extremely popular and busy little railway, as it provides a neat short-cut for visitors to the town. As such, it must be one of the most “useful” of the railways we’re visiting, as it doesn’t simply exist as an attraction in itself. It does get very busy, so it may be worth your while biting the bullet and queuing, or telling one of your children to queue for you….

　

There are three engines taking turns on the track, and the staff are very friendly and willing to talk about what’s going on, lovely! The fare is paid for a one-way trip, and is £1.20 for adults, and £1 for children. You’ll be seated in covered carriages, which can be described as “cosy”.

Unfortunately we didn’t quite have enough time to visit the lifeboat station as Sam had spent so long playing in the nice little playground next to the town-end station…..and there was a mini-carnival taking place at the same time, so we kinda forgot about the railways for an hour or two…..
　

Wells itself is a nice little seaside town, and we’d recommend a visit. And while you’re there, hop on the WHR too!

Eight down.....eight (?) to go....

5 Aug 09 - Wells & Walsingham Light Railway

The Wells & Walsingham Light Railway connects the seaside with the christian equivalent of Euro Disney, and claims to be the longest 10 ¼ inch railway in the world. And it’s well worth visiting!
　

The timetable varies at different times of the year so it’s best to check before you travel. In August they run the maximum number of trains to coincide with the school holidays, and so it came to pass that Sam and Dad arrived in Little Walsingham (don’t go to Great Walsingham next door) with half an hour to spare before the first departure of the day at 11 a.m. It was a good thing we were early too, as Walsingham’s not an easy place to negotiate on your first visit! The tiny roads are thronged with christians of all sizes, shapes and colours, and best of all, NUNS and MONKS and VICARS IN DRESSES! All this fancy dress scenery will give you a chuckle before you even get parked.

　
Try to find a local sign for Egmere and this will put you on the right road for the station. When you find the station turn round, head back towards the village, and turn into (I think) Coker's Hill, where there’s a convenient Pray & Display (pun copyright of Sam) car park. As we drove in there were yet more vicars milling around, Walsingham’s like Father Ted, but for real. We paid £3 for five hours stay, which turned out to be perfect.

When you turn into the railway you’ll see a small shed and a tiny set of buffers - don’t worry, this IS the station. The green Walsingham sign will confirm you’re in the right place. When the train arrives take your seats, the guard will come to find you to sell you your tickets. There’s a choice of carriages, open or enclosed, so I guess your choice will depend on the weather.

　

Now that we’re seasoned railway riders, we take the back of the train on the outward journey, so we can see the whole thing as it takes a corner, then the front carriage on the way back, to be close to the engine. We’ve turned into anoraks.

　

The fares are £7.50 for an adult return, and £6 for over-threes. A little steep? Possibly, but attractions like this need to raise funds to keep going, so I’m all in favour.

　

The ride itself was absolutely beautiful at this time of year. The untouched embankments and cuttings that make up much of the route are overgrown with wildlife-friendly planting, and thousands of butterflies flutter around as the train goes by. It’s a shame there are quite so many cuttings, because they obscure some wonderful views of the Norfolk countryside. Your journey lasts about half an hour each way.

　
The station at Wells Next The Sea is actually about a kilometre away from the main part of the town. That’s not so bad on the way in, as it’s downhill and children have the excitement of the seaside ahead. To go back you may want to consider an alternative method of transport….I lugged Sam back on my shoulders, which was fun but bloomin’ hard work!

　

Altogether a lovely little railway - and your little ones may conk out on the way home!

28 Jun 09 - North Norfolk Railway

The next stop on the Most Excellent Railway Adventure was the North Norfolk Railway (NNR).

This is a superbly presented railway, running from Sheringham to Holt, and is well worth a visit. This railway is a step above most of those that we’ve travelled on so far, inasmuch that it’s a full-size railway, with “real” old rolling stock and engines, as opposed to some of the more “hobby-ist” railways we’ve visited. They’re all good fun - but this one is bigger - the biggest so far apart from British Rail.

But don’t let that put you off, far from being diminished by the size, the NNR lives up to it, and gives you a full-scale, authentic heritage railway. The carriages and engines are great in themselves, but for me the NNR really scores highly for its complete attention to detail. There are barrows of suitcases around the stations, awaiting the attention of the porter. There are authentic tin signs, old bicycles, beautifully kept flower beds (seen one of those at your local BR station recently?). It’s all a lovely blast from the past. Even the volunteers who staff and run the railway dress in realistic clothing. Wonderful.

A new addition this year are the voluntary donation boxes, which invite you to choose the project that your loose change will go to support. It’s not compulsory, but I defy you not to add your own 50p worth after looking around this lovely railway. When the level crossing across the coast road is in place, the NNR will have access to the national rail network, and vice versa…..more visitors, more inventive excursions, the future looks very bright!

One warning I must give you, with regard to your travelling time TO your starting station. Work out how long you think it will take, the night before, and then double it. We’ve been to this railway before and “just” made the departure time, and the same happened today when we allowed an hour to drive the 33 miles, and ended up sprinting up to the ticket office at the very last moment. It’s because of Sunday drivers, tractors, caravans, and all the other extra stuff you find on Norfolk’s roads that you don’t find in most of the rest of the country.

Anyway, once you’re there you’re in for a lovely visit. The price for unlimited travel for a day is £10 for adults, and £7.50 for 5 to 15 year olds, which does seem slightly costly. As you ride between the Holt and Sheringham stations you are rewarded with beautiful views of the sea over heathland, and it’s all rather splendid - and over too fast. On my own, I would ride up and down the line all day, with Sam we made the one trip, with a lot of fun in Sheringham in between trips.

We’ve been to the NNR before. We’ll definitely go again!



Six down….errrrm…..more to go…..

Two Month Progress Report

We’re now two months into our challenge. It’s time for a progress report.

We started with a list of 13 railways to ride on within 6 months….we’ve found out about another one while on our travels, and we’ve got wind (Sam, less baked beans please) of another two….

Here’s the tale so far (click the coloured word for a link to their website):

In The Bag- 5

3 April - Bure Valley Railway

8 April - Bressingham Steam Museum

25 April - British Rail (whatever they’re called)

17 May - Lynnsport Railway

17 May - Barton House Railway

Planned - 5

Mid-Norfolk Railway AND Yaxham Light Railway - to be visited on the same day due to geography and an extremely helpful staff at Yaxham (2 railways total)

Wells & Walsingham Light Railway AND Wells Harbour Railway - to be visited on the same day in early August - Wells Carnival Day, gonna be a great day out! (2 railways total)

15 August - Norton Hill Light Railway

On The Horizon - 3

North Norfolk Railway - quite easy to visit

Pentney Park Railway - awaiting details, uh-oh

Pettitt’s Animal Park Railway - will be a good day out

Those are the original 13 railways we identified. But….



Coming Out Of Left-field - A Few….

Ashmanhaugh Light Railway - only open first Sunday each month

Merrivale Model Village, Yarmouth - rumours only so far

“Somewhere near Cromer, maybe something to do with golf” - investigations ongoing!

Eaton Park Railway - Sundays

Strumpshaw Steam - tbn

Fritton Lake - eh?

So 5 down, 13 to go, maybe a few to add! It’s great fun!

The Quest Goes On....

As much as we love the Interweb, sometimes you just have to go back in time and WRITE LETTERS!



Such is the case in the Excellent Train Adventure. Three pesky railways are very tough to track down online, so we've resorted to snail mail to request more information.

If you know anything about Pentney Park Railway, Norton Hill Light Railway, or Ashmanhaugh Light Railway, please let us know!

17 May 09 - Barton House Railway

“Why is it called Barton House Railway Daddy?”

“I don’t know mate, maybe we’ll find out when we get there….”

Barton House Railway (BHR) was our second stop on our Super Sunday. It’s only open on the third Sunday each month, so you have to plan your visit a little in advance - but it’s well, well worth making the effort. The directions on their website are very good - just keep your eyes peeled on the right for The Avenue. If you reach the funeral parlour use their car park to turn round in, they don’t mind. And the car park is not the biggest, so you may have to park on the roads in the surrounding (posh, very posh) housing area (it’s fine, it gives budding jungle explorers a chance to test their skills):

It costs just £2 for adults or £1 for children to get into BHR, and this includes a single journey of their Riverside Railway and access to their lovely railway museum. Further tickets for more journeys can be purchased at the booking office - more of that later.

BHR is so-called because it is situated in the gardens of a large residence called - come on, you can guess it - Barton House! Mystery solved. It’s a beautiful location, the gardens are very pleasant, and you can walk down alongside the River Bure to watch the swans and boats gliding past. Idyllic!

There are currently two separate railways at BHR, with plans in place to add a third in the not-too-distant future. The current tracks are known as the Midland Railway and the Riverside Railway; the Midland Railway is a single loop, and the Riverside Railway has three separate stations.

Now, back to the tickets. A large reason for BHR’s existence is to commemorate and protect the history of the Midland & Great Northern Railway (M&GN), and as part of this you can purchase a bewildering array of different tickets for the trains. The range of tickets is an accurate recreation of M&GN’s original ticket system, and can be bought from a beautifully maintained period booking office. They offer First or Third Class tickets, the difference being that you can sit on a cushion if you go First Class! You can take as many rides as you like and it won't break the bank, prices are from just 15p upwards.

The Midland Railway is the original track at BHR, and is a 3 ½ inch gauge loop, on which passengers and train crew sit astride the train, and the track. The driver is always happy to give you a lesson in BHR history as you make your way around the circuit.

The Riverside Railway comprises of two stations alongside the river (obviously!), and a central station separating them, named Wroxham Station. This is a 7 ¼ inch gauge track, and is probably 200 metres total length. Like Lynnsport, you won’t be riding for hours, but it’s just as much fun. I think the three station set-up is probably so that the M&GN ticket system can be used authentically. Engines are both steam and electric, and as usual, are immaculately built and maintained.

Check out their website : http://www.bartonhouserailway.org.uk/

BHR also has a fully functional signal box, and the staff there are very happy to teach visitors all about how signalling works etc (photo courtesy of Sam).

If you fancy a sit down and rest you MUST visit Dickerson’s Diner, who offer a lovely range of home-made cakes (we particularly liked the rice crispie chocolate cakes).




So we managed to visit both our Sundays-only railways. Most Excellent!



Five down, eight to go.

Recommended!

17 May 2009 - Lynnsport Railway

Our two-in-one Super Sunday started at the local sports centre - Lynnsport!

How many people around here know that there’s a miniature railway there? Not a lot, including Old Bob from The Woolpack, and he knows everything there is to know about King’s Lynn.

After a visit to the Skatepark we wandered around the corner of the main building, following the “Train Rides 50p!” signs, and easily found our next railway. There weren’t many people there, maybe partly thanks to the showery weather, but that just means less queuing doesn’t it.

Lynnsport railway is contained in a small area, and the track is probably 200 metres around, so the rides won’t take up your whole afternoon. This doesn’t make it less fun than other mini-railways though, as the enthusiasts who run it maintain it very neatly and with obvious care and attention. The gauge apparently varies depending on which engines are running - we travelled behind and electric engine called Oska, liveried as a British Rail engine, fab.

The Lynnsport Railway website is here: http://www.kldsme.org.uk/index.htm

We had a cool THREE laps ride for our 50p, which is great value for money. The track is surprisingly smooth - I was expecting the smaller gauge to be a little more rattly, but no, you hardly feel a bump.

The people running Lynnsport Railway are extremely friendly and more than happy to chat about their hobby, and were interested to hear about our challenge.

Four down, nine to go.

Recommended!

25 April 2009 - British Rail To Downham Market

OK, British Rail, First Travel, Network Rip-Off, whatever you call it, was never going to be such a fun event as the smaller railways….

We chose to tick off British Rail as a means to travelling to Downham Market for their St George’s Day celebrations. On the platform to take the 1156 departure, Sam was holding The Banner while I manned the camera. On cue, a party of Yummy Mummies with their children walked by and there issued forth such a blast of “ooooh” and “ahhhhhh” and “Look, how lovely” that you’d think they were watching The Biggest, Poshest Fireworks Display, EVER! One of the Yms offered to snap the pic, and her shot is reproduced here. Thanks Yummy Mummies!

In Downham we were a little late for the events, as most of the fun happened in the morning. That’s not gone well…..

Still, Downham Market has several nice charity shops which we regularly visit, so all was not lost. We found some new videos, and Sam unearthed a Playmobil 4X4 - he has a nice collection of Playmobil toys at his mum’s house, so that’s where the new find will live. We even found one of my favourite films (which I will be watching tonight) - Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure - it’s a fab film but WHY OH WHY did they steal the title from the name of our blog?

In Downham’s fabulous traditional sweet shop Sam bagged up some pick’n’mix while I splashed out on Fruit Salad and Black Jacks - much more expensive these days at 2p apiece!

And thus back to Lynn. Not the most exciting trip that we’ll make in the pursuit of our quest, but another railway ticked and done.

Three down, ten to go….

8 Apr 09 - Bressingham Steam Experience

Bressingham Steam Museum was Stop Number Two on our Excellent Train Adventure.



You can find this cool place not far from Diss, on the Thetford to Diss road. We found it first time, so you should have NO problems (our track record for becoming temporarily directionally obfuscated is deplorable). If you can, try to obtain some money off vouchers before you visit (try Tourist Information offices, libraries etc). We’d got hold of a “One Child Free” voucher so the two of us got in for just £12, including unlimited train rides and Three rides on the steam-powered Gallopers. I think that’s a decent price.




The biggest surprise was the railways. Plural. We’d planned it as just one, but there were two different gauges running. The smaller gauge around the 1,200 metre Garden Line, named because it runs through one of the beautiful gardens at Bressingham, and the 4km Nursery Line, taking you past engine sheds and the nursery for the garden centre - complete with very frequent toot-toots to clear errant partridges, or pheasants, or some-such, off the line. Once again, for me, the smell of the steam was fantastic, while both me and Sam loved getting close to the trains and engines again to see how they work, where the steam comes out, where they get dirty, etc.



Included in our “Steam Day” tickets were three rides each on the lovingly restored steam-fired Gallopers, which have ended up in Norfolk via a colourful journey including Whitley Bay and Fife. I Love the Gallopers. They’re not a white-knuckle experience, they move slowly, they’re old-fashioned. But bloody good fun. Sam enjoys them too, as we “race” each other around the ride. My final ride was aboard something that looked a little like a bald chicken, or an ostrich, and we christened him “Christmas Dinner”. Sam’s horse was painted with the name Jack, and we had fun with dodgy commentary (afterwards finding out that several parents behind us on the ride had enjoyed it just as much). Three rides included in the ticket price is also good VFM, if you go to, say, a country show at Sandringham you’ll be paying £2 each per trip.



Before we went I didn’t notice that there is a permanent Dad’s Army exhibition at Bressingham. Most of the outdoor scenes in the much-loved comedy series were filmed in nearby Thetford Forest, and most of the unusual vehicles you might see on the show were borrowed from Bressingham’s collection. I was Very thrilled to touch the steam traction engine that demolished a row of tents and soldiers’ kit. There’s a recreation of the Church Hall too, plus another recreation of Walmington-On-Sea High Street, and it’s all rather more exciting for an old duffer like me than for a 5-year-old like Sam. He did enjoy it, he likes the Second World War as a subject, so it was very much a win-win part of the day.


We bought dinner from the Gallopers Café, which was just what we needed, then explored some more. Access to the engine sheds in unlimited, and they have some Enormous steam engines in there. They also have some out-of-use Royal Train carriages, which are very luxurious. It’s also bizarre to see a bath-tub on a train! There is a beautifully preserved signal box which you can snoop round, plus the obligatory playground.



We were fortunate to visit on a Steam Day, other days there will be diesel or electric trains running. An extra bonus of the Steam Day is the 1950’s vintage Dodgems rink, which costs £2 per car. The floor is Very bumpy, the cars are Very slow, but it’s excellent fun, especially as the nature of Bressingham precludes hordes of teenagers determined to bump everyone they can as fast as they can go. Great fun.


We loved Bressingham, and recommend it, a lot.

Two down, eleven to go!