Basildon Miniature Railway - Miniature Railway Britain Episode 110.

Hello, thank you for joining me. You can see where I am. I'm at Pitsie on the London, Tilbury and Southend line. So that way is looking towards Southend and here's the V-shaped station. So this way goes to London via Tilbury and that way goes to London via Langdon and Upminster. I've always quite liked this station. I was really fascinated by it. It's got an old concrete bridge over there. It seems to have more footbridges. Everywhere you look there's a footbridge. Just a sort of fairly complex station because of its shape. V-shaped station. Got the old, I think that's an old power signal box in the middle and you've got the ticket office in the middle. So once I've made my way out of this rather complex station I'm going to head to what was known as being the Watts Tyler Country Park to visit a miniature railway which has been closed for a while but last year it reopened. It's now known as the Basildon Miniature Railway. That's where we're going to today. Let's have one more look at the old signal box. Here we are. This is the Watts Tyler Country Park. To give you an idea how far I've just come along if you look behind me you can just see that grey you can see that's the lift shaft for the station footbridge. So it's been about a five minute walk to Watts Tyler Country Park. Now I have visited this railway before. I didn't make a video. I think it was in about 2011 and they were running a green class 31. So here we are we're entering Watts Tyler Country Park and I'll have to see if I can dig out some pictures from it but I remember being quite fascinated by this railway because it seemed to go on and on and on and it had been extended and then it closed down and I did think that was it and I thought I'd never get to make a video there but then last year it began to reawaken. I was following their Facebook page and they kept saying how they're going to reopen and I've always been looking forward to coming to visit the line when it reopens and today I understand they're running steam which I think is the first time they've ran steam here since the 1990s. Now one thing I think we might be about to see is a part of the line that possibly hasn't been rehabilitated. Yes if I remember rightly an extension had been built to here to the gates of the park and I think when they built the extension to the gates of the park they never actually built a station so you just got a longer train ride but you didn't actually get to make use of it. If you look here it looks like it has been mown so whether this is a long-term project to rehabilitate this so I promise you we're not coming to a disused miniature railway we just seem to have come across a currently disused railway. I'm going to follow the track of this and then when we get to the next station or junction that's where we should hopefully find the operational parts of the miniature railway. Also when I last visited it was known as the Watt Tyler miniature railway it now goes under the name of the Basildon miniature railway because the town of Basildon is not too far away so let's go and hopefully ride the trains here. I'm sure we're going to find the trains because they said they're running steam today let's go and find them. There we are found the train Corrie Hunslet called Ivor. Now it's facing in the direction of the disused line if you look up there I think there's a loop I remember that loop last time I didn't get to ride it because trains went straight that way down the line I just showed you so I think it's going to go around the loop and possibly come back through the station. I think there's possibly two trains out so actually no looking at it the loop's there and now I think it comes back over there that's it so I've not done that bit of track I've done the disused bit I've not done this bit so I'm going to buy some tickets and watch the train see what happens and maybe catch the next one. There we are I have boarded the train looking for for a trip on this line like I say it does the loop first which we just saw with the trains I'm not sure if we've got to wait for the other train to come back before we can begin or we'll wait and see but what I've done I've deliberately chosen this back seat so I'm going to film the ride as like a guard's eye view so you'll be able to see the whole of the line all but backwards so let's enjoy the ride. Quick announcement please keep your arms and legs inside the train at all times and most importantly enjoy the ride. So here we are at the other end of the Basildon miniature railway we didn't really see that when we were riding the trains we stayed on the train we saw the loco run round I think they've probably finished for today there's a chance I might get to see one or two more trains but I rode both trains and I've done a bit alongside it's been a really enjoyable afternoon so thank you to the Basildon miniature railway for such a great afternoon. Just to show you a few things here when you end up down this end of the line right over there in the distance I don't know if you can see I can just see a little church tower so that's an old church tower above Pitsy station probably about a mile that way because the line must be nearly a mile long looking over there that tower block there I believe that's Basildon town centre of course Basildon what railway now takes its name from so that's the big new town of Basildon where I'm probably going to go after here to find somewhere to eat and then here's the creek now the tide's in so it looks better with the tide in and then got all these pylons which I think makes quite an interesting backdrop for a miniature railway and then beyond there is the London gateway container terminal see all the big cranes and see all the containers all stacked up there's various paths that go off down there I don't can't really see there's no bridge down there so I think that's the path that goes down there around there see a bloke fishing over there there's a abandoned boat and it looks like it's a bird hide so it's really quite an interesting place the other thing there's a lot to go into and I'm not going to go into this video is the history of the site is very interesting I believe they used to make um munitions and there was gunpowder and everything here but like I say that's probably another video in itself so apologies for not really including the history of the site it has a very interesting history and it's a very vast country park so I'm going to have a bit of a walk around when I finish making the video so I hope you enjoyed this video thank you very much for watching so thank you to the House of the Miniature Railway for a great afternoon do come and visit them it's not a long way to walk from the railway station at Pitsea so thank you very much and from the end of the line here with you out to the marina