Vintage Set at Northiam on KESR

Working the level crossing gates at Northiam today on the Kent and East Sussex Railway. What promised to be a wet, cold day turned out to be just so. Trains well patronised all the same.

The first train of the day was delayed at Northiam owing to problems with the brake, first on a carriage and then on the engine. It took almost 45 minutes to rectify the fault and resulted in the whole service playing catchup. Remarkably, over the rest of the day, that happened and we finished on time with the last up train departing, as timetabled, at 17.20.

Today's shot is of the vintage train, with Norwegian at the head, taken from the crossing keeper's shelter. I'd just worked the gates and was waiting for the up train to arrive in the other platform. Most of the wooden coaches you can see here were rescued, some had been used as holiday homes or as garden buildings. The coach, third from the left is a Metropolitan Coach No 100, on loan to us from the National Railway Museum. This is typical, if a little longer, of a train of the 1930s on this line. But not in such good condition. The line's owner Col. Stephens was renown for running his railways on a shoestring, finding stock and locomotives where he could at bargain prices.