Wednesday 3 September 2014

Thornham's Vicar

      A day in the life of Reverend John Crawley, vicar of Thornham's All Saint's church, up on the hill outside of the town. The church was heavily modernised in the mid-1800's but there has been a church on the site since the early 1200's, and was a stopping point for pilgrims from London on the way to Canterbury, thus helping it get it's name from the patron saint of travellers.



       Twice a week the Reverend travels to the nearby town of Smallport, to visit those of his flock who can't make it to All Saints's to see him, and as this is a railway blog, he goes by train. A short bus ride gets him to the Thornham terminus of the Thornham Bay Light Railway, where his train has just arrived.



       The abandoned quarry is the Reverend's favourite part of the journey, he always puts down his book when he gets to this part.


      Then before he knows it, he has arrived in Smallport. The station here is always busy as it is right next to the goods yard and the canal, but this means he can say hello to the local workers on his way to see the people he is visiting.

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Thornham town

     This is a tour of the outskirts of the town that gives the narrow gauge railway its name. Thornham is a historic walled, market town somewhere on the north coast of Kent, with trade links to both the near by Canterbury and, the slightly more distant, London. 


      Thornham is a bustling town, with long stretches of its historic wall still standing, as seen here near the station. Access to this side of the town is therefore difficult for cars, but there are bigger gaps in the wall elsewhere, that have allowed for bigger roads to be built.




       The petrol station, come car dealership, is doing well up against the town wall.


       The market has grown so large, in Thornham, that it has spread outside the town walls, onto the side streets. Although, a few of the locals has expressed views that they prefer having a much more local market outside their door, rather than having to walk all the way into town.

       Who is that on the mobile phone in the 1960's?

Monday 25 August 2014

Over at the mainline station

    Over at Thornham's mainline station a busy day is just about to start. On platform 1 we have the electric mainline train towards London, platform 2 has a freight heading through, while on the right hand side, platform 3, is the local steam hauled train.
     The platforms look a bit quiet at the moment but with two trains coming in at almost the same time, and the morning rush hour just about to begin, it won't look like this for very long.


     While the commuters aren't quite up and about yet, both the newspaper stand on the station and the row of shops opposite all look like they are getting ready to start their working days.


Until next time. thanks for reading.

Thursday 21 August 2014

Firing up the engines

     This blog is going to be a story about a railway of at least two halves. A rural industrial narrow gauge line coming to terms with a changing world, and the standard gauge line it connects to. The railways are set in the early to mid-1960's somewhere in Kent, probably on the north coast of the county and are a joint venture between my Dad and I, with his main focus on the standard and mine on the narrow, although we both do work and have interests in both.
     I'm not going to go into too much detail on this first post, the next one will probably be all about the layout plan and a detailed description, for now I am just going to post some pretty pictures at the start of Thornham Bay Light Railway's working day, with the two mainstay engines in the shed and then starting passenger train duties.

009 oo9 gem vari-kit loco engine

009 oo9 gem vari-kit loco engine

Until next time, Thanks for reading.