UK - Steam train returns after 50 years

[John Ashworth]

Steam train returns after 50 years

SARAH HALL
norwicheveningnews24
14 April 2009 07:00

Train lovers can take a step back in time after a steam engine service was relaunched on Norfolk's shortest railway line - five decades after it closed.

The Whitwell and Reepham Station has reopened after 50 years laying dormant, and now people can enjoy a nostalgic journey every month on the line.

The station's new steam engine is called Annie and it will transport hundreds of people on the short journey on the first Sunday of each month, while on other weekends there will be a diesel engine called Georgie at the station.

Mike Urry , founder of the group who own the station in Whitwell Road, Reepham, celebrated the official reopening on Sunday with dozens of volunteers and passengers. .

“It is amazing to see so many people using the steam train again,” he said. “It has proved very popular and people of all ages seemed to love the little journey it makes.

“In particular the elderly people love it because they remember when they used to go on steam trains regularly.”

The line is only 1,500 feet long so the steam train journey takes a maximum of 10 minutes. Annie has an engine that is 105-years-old but it is still in “brilliant” condition.

The station is equally as entrenched in the “olden days” with no electricity and the water used is pumped directly from a well.

Mr Urry has owned the station for 18 months and is currently in the process of revamping it, having already applied to have it classified as a licensed premises.

The revamp, paid for through donations, includes re-laying of track and sidings, acquiring rolling stock and setting-up a museum relating to the Midland & Great Northern Railway and Whitwell Station.

He said: “I am so glad I took the opportunity to bring the station back to life with the steam train.

“It is hard to explain but steam trains are very exciting to people. The steam, the smell and the sound are all very pleasing to many people.

“It is really exciting.”

The Lynn & Fakenham Railway was originally granted permission by an Act of Parliament on 12th August 1880 to build the station.

It then developed into the Eastern & Midlands Railway in 1883 and then into the Midland & Great Northern Railway in 1893.

The station formed part of the Norwich City to Melton Constable leg of the M&GN which ran for a total of 21.5 miles. The Station first opened on 1st July 1882, and closed in March 1959.

Annie arrived at the station in March after travelling on the back of a low-loader from the Chatham historical dockyard in Kent along the M25, M 11, A11 and the Norwich ring road and was greeted with rapturous applause by a band of excited volunteers gathered at the station.

For more information about the station log onto www.whitwellstation.com