Riley's Miniature Railway - Episode 49 of Miniature Railway Britain.

Hello and thank you for joining me. I'm in East Sussex today. I've come to the village of Isfield. We've come here to do another episode of Miniature Railway Britain. Now the village of Isfield is home to the Lavender Line. You're probably thinking what's the standard gauge railway doing on Miniature Railway Britain? Well the reason is there's a miniature railway here as well. So if you look there you can just see the old level crossing gates. That was the line south down to Lewis and then here is the station and here's the preserved Lavender Line. So this is a section of the old line from Lewis which went all the way up to London north of Uckfield. The line's still open but this section closed in 1969. It opened in 1858. So here's Isfield station and I can hear the sound of steam. Is that coming from a standard gauge or a miniature railway loco? I'm not sure but no doubt we will find out quite shortly because we're going to go and have a look. So this is the car park of the Lavender Line. Southern region railway. They've got lots of diesel bumpers and everything which I'm quite excited about because I should get some interesting standard gauge haulage although as I said it's a miniature railway video. But firstly have a look at this. Something a bit different. Little Belgian built tram loco. So we'll be having a ride on that no doubt with a DMU carriage and just in front of us here that's a thumper carriage. So that's not the one that's out. I think there should be fairly soon a thumper arriving so we'll probably see that arrive and then we're going but we're also going to go around here to find the miniature. It's called the Riley's miniature railway. I believe it to be a five inch gauge railway and it runs along beside the main line. So what we'll do is we'll go and have a look at that. So we're just going around here. There's a carriage of all sorts of junk and stuff. Oh yeah here we are this is something I was looking for. So it says this way to platform two and it says Riley's miniature railway. That's what we come here to see. But obviously we'll see the standard gauge stuff as well. So I'm now standing on the main formation. Looking towards Lewis. It's filled signal box. Here's another thumper carriage. So I've never been on one but thumpers used to work the line and up until Uckfield up to about 2005 the line was still worked by thumpers. There's two thumpers here facing each other. There's a little shop we'll have a look in there. We might do. Here is the Riley's miniature railway. A little jinty down there. The steam I can hear is coming from the standard gauge line. So what we'll do, the train comes along we'll go for a ride. I'm not sure if I'm going to do the standard gauge line first or the narrow gauge line. I'm still not sure which train I'm going to catch first. Whether it be that one or the Riley's miniature railway. So I'm going to hang around now and just see which one comes along first or which one departs first rather. That was a great little trip on the Riley's miniature railway. If you have a look it's called Evelina Junction. That's because all the money from this railway goes to a children's hospice, the Evelina children's hospice. The name Riley's miniature railway comes from a little boy who was born with a heart condition who basically has always had to live in a hospice. The idea is that the money made from the railway is donated to that hospice. So if you have a ride on the railway you're not only having a nice time but it goes to a good cause. There's the signal box there, the old Islesfield signal box. Can go and have a look in there but there's a family in there right now so let's leave that for another time. So yeah that's the railway looking towards Lewis where it used to go. I'm going to wander up to the car park now because what I was thinking was the steam train has gone out, that little tram steam engine. If we're down in the car park around the right time we could see it come back past. While we're here we could perhaps have a look at this thumper. You might be able to hear the noise, the thumping sort of noise and this reminds me of, well I don't really remember these in service. I'm just a little bit too young. I lived in the wrong region but I do remember once going on a southern region unit to Eastbourne and seeing them when they're around. Must have been about 2003 because I think it was 2005 they finished on main lines but it's just really nice to hear it ticking over. I've had in my videos in the past the Hastings unit, the preserved unit. I've seen that out a few times. That's the narrower bodied version so if you look there that's like the guards compartment and then this is the passenger saloon here. So you've got the network southeast maquettes. So you can see you can't actually walk from one carriage to another and then if we go up to here they still have these first class compartments. So this is a first class compartment of a thumper unit. Oh very comfortable. The other day I went on an Azuma from Inverness to London and when I got back my back really hurt because of the ironing board. Seats are very hard and uncomfortable. I know there's all these fire regulations but these seats are so comfortable. I wish they had more seats like this and more trains. I wish trains had compartments as well. Anyway what we're going to do now is, well the miniature railway's just out there. You can just see the station sign. I don't know if a train's going to go past. I'm going to go out in the car park though because I want to see the steam train go past. So let's get out again. Steam train's not quite back. The railway line it goes about a mile up there to a little halt called Worth Halt. Another thumper unit. This is an unusual thing. This is like a laboratory railcar. So it must have been for BR members of staff who could do certain research within that little railcar. We're going to go back down here and we'll go out into the station car park where we'll have a look at the rest of it. I do really love that sound of the thumping sound. We'll go out here and wait and see the steam loco come back. So you know it's a very interesting place to come to the Lavender Line. You get a ride on the Stanley Gage and a miniature railway. It's near Lewis. It's to the south. Uckfield's to the north. It's not the easiest place to get to by train but I have seen quite a few double-decker buses going past. It's a Sunday today so it has got public transport links so you can get here. Well look at that. Now that is how I remember seeing thumpers. See that livery there? That's the conic slivery. I do remember them running in that. So I never went on one on the main line. I went on the electric unit. See here look that's 205033. So I probably may have seen this unit on the main line. Obviously it wouldn't run with that front. It's been re-painted but that faded livery on the side. That's the conic slivery. The riders miniature railway went to just beyond past the water tower for the Stanley Gage. That was where we saw the thumper when we got to the other end. Nice little wash miner there. So if we go here we'll just go up to where the engine sheds are and we can stand and hang around here waiting to see the steam train pass. Then I'll go and have a ride on the steam train and ride on the thumper. I've never been on a thumper before so there's something ticked off my bucket list. So there's the other thumper unit so let's wait and see the steam train pass. So after watching the trains on both lines I've come back around here. The railway's being packed up. I think the steam loco on the main line is going to go on shed. I've had a great day here. Really enjoyed it. So as I said do you know do come and visit the lavender line and the riley's miniature railway and as soon as there's no one else in the speaker box I'm going there to finish the video. If you come here by bus there is a bus stop there so it's fairly easy to get to. You just can't actually get here by train without a bit of a walk. So this is Isfield signal box. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to say goodbye. Thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment and from Isfield signal box goodbye.