Читать книгу Railway Day Trips: 160 classic train journeys around Britain - Julian Holland - Страница 37

The world-famous Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway runs for 13½ miles along the Kent coast from Hythe to the enormous shingle bank headland at Dungeness. Built to a gauge of 15 in, it was the creation of a wealthy racing driver and a miniature locomotive engineer and opened in 1927. It is a one-third scale, fully signalled, double-track main line (between Hythe and New Romney) with express trains operating at up to 25 mph, hauled by scale versions of LNER and Canadian steam engines. A single-track extension was opened between New Romney and Dungeness in 1928.

Trains depart from Hythe’s overall-roofed station in a southwesterly direction along the double-track route between the expanse of Romney Marsh and the coastline. Serving the coastal ribbon development of bungalows, chalets and holiday camps, trains call at Burmarsh Road, Dymchurch, St Mary’s Bay and Warren Halt before arriving at the railway’s headquarters at New Romney. Here, workshops, engine shed, model railway and café are found. Beyond New Romney, trains on the single-track line negotiate a series of level crossings as they make their way through a landscape interspersed with fishermen’s shacks and dominated by the lighthouses and nuclear power stations at Dungeness. After dropping off their passengers, trains take a 360-degree loop here before heading back to Hythe.

DESTINATION HIGHLIGHTS

Light Railway Café; National Nature Reserve; RSPB bird observatory; beach fishing; lighthouse open to public; 1930s concrete acoustic ‘listening ears’; fishermen’s wooden cottages

FREQUENCY OF TRAINS

3-9 per day (end March-Oct, Christmas and New Year)

NB Hythe can be reached by bus from Folkestone

13½ MILES 1 HOUR 20 MINUTES

NUMBER OF CHANGES: 0

Built in 1927, No. 8 ‘Hurricane’ hauls a train near New Romney on the 15-in-gauge Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway.