Mangapps Railway Museum

Today it is 200 years since the start of passenger railway travel in Britain! On 27th September 1825, George Stephen's Locomotion No. 1 travelled from Shildon to Stockton with a few hundreds of people on board.  This was a massive day in the history of travel and journeys.  As someone who spends almost 2 hours a day on board a train, this is hugely important to my life! I only realised this anniversary about 10 minutes ago as I was listening to Radio 3's Train Tracks show with music and words relating to train travel.  You can read more about it here and catch up on BBC sounds.

It's totally serendipitous, therefore, that I was going to publish my visit to a railway museum.

I hope you enjoy my day out with trains!

Back in mid-August, CBC's brother and his partner came out to see us and had a day out together.  We went out cycling and ended up cycling to Essex Marina to take the Burnham ferry (it's a motorboat that travels in the Summer months) to Burnham-on-Crouch.  This town is served by a branch railway line and you arrive on the jetty in the centre of town.  Sadly, the guy who has been running it for years has recently had to give up the business due to some sort of life-changing health condition and it's being currently run by a new owner and helped out by some other sailors.  The guy who picked us up used to be a Police-diver.

In Burnham, we went to go and have some fish and chips for lunch from Essex's best fish-and-chip shop and after a tea and cake in a nice cafe next door, we cycled onto our next destination,  Mangapps railway museum!

Run entirely by volunteers and on private land, this is a railway museum with lots to see and do.

We saw this old tube train outside as we arrived.

Inside there is loads of wonderful old signs and posters and benches.

It is quite extensive inside but not overwhelming somewhere vast like York railway museum.

You could get onto and up close to lots of the stock.

Every hour, you can take a short train ride to the other end of the field!

You could tell the volunteers LOVE what they do!

I miss trains being like this!!! Honestly, more comfortable than the current ones!

At the end of the field, we got out for a stop.

It was  Diesel running that day but they do have steam days.

Here was our noble steed.

Here's a rare picture of CBC!

The volunteers were very knowledgeable!

I enjoyed looking in the station master's office and a waiting room and a signal box!

There's SO many pieces of history to look at.

One couple got to have a go at changing the signals. We were in a bit of a hurry to see round as we had arrived fairly close to closing time so wanted to see round rather than try this.

You can see the signals change as you do it which was very cool and see what safety measures are in place to stop an accident.

You could go inside most of the trains and there were items relating to railway people and their jobs, model trainsets and much more.

I really enjoyed having a wander through this tube train by myself!

I used to love those black shiny handholds when I was a child!

Here's the signal box you could climb!

 We really enjoyed it and I really recommend you go to visit it if you are ever in Essex. Here's the website for details.  You can get there by train by travelling from Liverpool Street to Wickford where you change for the Southminster line (usually only one an hour) and go to Burnham-on-Crouch. Many people like to go crabbing here too!

After this, we cycled back towards Burnham and got the return ferry before cycling back home. We took them out to dinner and then they headed back to London.

Southend Pier

Two weekends ago, my sister and her boyfriend came to stay.  We decided to head to Southend-on-Sea for the afternoon and take a trip on the pier train!

Southend pier is the largest pleasure pier in the world and extends 1.34 miles into the Thames estuary.

The Victorian era was a great time for the rise of the seaside holiday so many visitors to the coast, so relatively near to London created a demand for infastructure.

It first opened to the public in 1889 (in its current form) and the pier train opened in the early 1890's.  It was the first pier train in the country.

The pier train has played an important part of Southend's history.

In both World wars, it played a part. In WW1, ships which container German PoW's were moored on the end of it. In WW2, it was commandeered by the Navy and was closed to the public. After that time, it received many visitors from the late 40's onwards. In the 70's, there was some structural issues and there was a threat of closer, only stopped by protests. Grants were awarded and the pier was renovated with a new pier train in the 1980's.

It costs a minimum of £1 to walk on the pier. If you want the train, a one way ticket is £5.70 per adult. If you're feeling lazy or infirm, you can get a return ticket for £6.20.

We decided to take the train there and then walk back.

As we left, my musical era was delighted by the regular ostinato (repeated pattern) rhythm the train made.  The train moves fairly slowly so you can take photos as you go. I enjoyed looking at the underside of the pier at this height.

Here's the only shot I took inside. It was quite busy!

The train is a jolly green colour. Does it seem like it's smiling to you?

When you reach the other end of the pier, you can see some of the older trains including the royal carriage (the red one)

 I enjoyed the BR sign!

The seagulls were enjoying something edible on the railway line!

You can see Adventure Island behind.

It was a glorious day and this was a great activity for a sunny winter day.

At the end of the pier, there are quite a few facilities including Jamie's Italian. There are various kiosks which were all shut but I imagine, in the Summer, they house souvenirs and ice-creams.

Above, is a view from the end of the pier.

There is an RNLI centre and launchpoint at the end of the pier.  We saw one of the RNLI boats coming back in and got to watch it being winched back in.

Behind the lifeboat station, there is a great point to sit and look out to see with a large bell. Sadly, we couldn't really get to the end as there was a large amount of Twitchers/Birders who were all patiently there with vast cameras and binoculars as a Winter White Diver (or something like that) had been spotted there 2 days prior.

Lifeboat spam detailed below.

We noticed this great postbox cosy on the skinny little postbox!

Alas, we couldn't stay too long as we had to get some lunch before driving into London for a show (me and sister- Frozen. Boyfriend an CBC- De Peche mode.

I loved these three birds enjoying the halcyon day!

I recommend a visit to the pier.  It's easy to get to from Liverpool Street via the C2C or the Abellio Greater Anglia line.

I recommend a visit to Utopia cafe if you don't fancy the pier fare. It's a really quirky independent business. And if you want Fish and Chips, you are spoilt for choice!

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