Spa Valley Railway

 Tuesday 3rd August 2021

As things are opening up again - permanently or temporarily, who knows? - I decided that a visit to a heritage railway would be nice, especially as this one at least was happy to sell me one ticket rather than insisting on me paying for two, four, or more as was the case with some others.

The Spa Valley Railway runs from Tunbridge Wells in Kent to Eridge in East Sussex. At Eridge it shares a station with the Southern Railway main line with trains from London Bridge, East Croydon, Oxted and Uckfield. However that would be about three hours and five changes from here or about 90 minutes in the car. There's a large and reasonably priced car park at Eridge station.

 

Eridge looks and feels like a heritage line station and apart from the dot matrix indicators on platform 1 it’s only the modern diesel trains arriving at and departing from this platform that give the game away. 

Today was a heritage diesel running day on the Spa Valley Railway with services being provided by a two car BR Class 207 “Thumper” DEMU running to the “Purple Timetable” which provided five journeys in each direction throughout the day.

An adult ticket cost £12 on the day (even if purchased online) or £10 if you’re not travelling on the spur of the moment and buy it online in advance. Buy it at the station and it’s £12. That’s not too bad for what’s actually an all day rover, cheaper than many other preserved lines and the timings allowed me to catch the 1115 at Eridge, have a bit of lunch in Tunbridge Wells and look around the town and the SVR depot before getting the 1325 at Tunbridge Wells to Groombridge which is good for filming, photography, and more importantly tea and biccies from the kiosk on the station. After a quick wander around the village which isn’t that exciting I returned to Eridge on the 1501. I should mention that not one of those trains actually departed at the scheduled time, usually it was about 5 minutes later :-)

 

Having grown up on BR’s Western Region I’m not familiar with the Class 207 trains of Southern Region, nicknamed Thumpers because of the engine noise I read, which are diesel electric multiple units built in 1962 and remaining in service until 2004 when slam doors were no longer acceptable on a modern railway. Unlike the trains I grew up with which had the engines slung under the floor these have an engine in a compartment behind the driving cab and guard’s compartment, which obviously takes up a lot of space which otherwise could contain passengers. They sound good though if you’re in the motorised unit that is and if you’re in the trailer you can barely hear the engine at all.

 

In true 1960s style and unlike modern commuter trains the interiors have seats with actual springs in because back then the government didn’t insist that everyone travel in as much discomfort as possible. Quite a bit of standing space though for rush hour loadings and I expect the luggage racks above the seats were handy for reading the morning papers. No overcrowding today though, in fact I thought I was going to have this section of the train to myself until shortly before departure a young man & his companion/carer boarded. There had obviously been some sort of incident at the station which had upset him and he proceeded to have a minor melt-down for the duration of the trip, fortunately at the far end of the carriage mostly out of microphone range of my camera. I hope he calmed down enough to enjoy the rest of his day.

 

Tunbridge Wells West station is where most of the SVR locomotives and rolling stock lives and you can wander around the engine shed and yard where there are a number of steam and diesel locomotives in either running condition or serious stages of rebuild. The SVR is based in the engine shed, the lines into the original station being truncated by the access road for Sainsbury’s and the station buildings now a hotel and restaurant named “Smith & Western” with a huge set of cow horns over the entrance. I expect they play both kinds of music but I didn’t venture inside to find out, instead walking up to the Pantiles shopping area and the Chalybeate Spring which gives the town its name but is still shut due to the Great Plague of 2020/21.

 

I took a picnic up onto Tunbridge Wells Common which is conveniently located a short walk from the town and the SVR station. After which I caught the train to Groombridge.

 

Groombridge is probably the best station on the line to see and photograph the trains. It also has the passing loop so on days when multiple trains run this is where they pass. It’s also the place today where the sun passed out of sight behind the clouds although at least the rain held off until I was back on a train. The station has a refreshments kiosk which serves a decent cup of tea. I took a walk into the village which lies on the Kent/East Sussex border, here delineated by the river Grom (one 'o') over which there is a very small bridge carrying the B2110, and from which the village takes its name although it has acquired a spare ‘o' from somewhere along the way.

Last ride of the day was back to Eridge. I had planned to visit the fourth station High Rocks which is in the grounds of the pub and national monument but when passing through there was a sign saying the attraction was currently closed and the gate from the platform very much locked shut. Some other time then, a return visit being on the cards maybe on a steam running day.

More photos Flickr Album

 

And glorious(?) HD video