Tunbridge Wells West

Yes, Tunbridge Wells West is a railway station. At one time the attractive building was at the far end of a branch line from Three Bridges although the line continued to the middle of Tunbridge Wells too.

Now it is the terminus of a heritage railway which runs through Groombridge to Eridge. Actually, is doesn’t quite meet up with the old station building in Tunbridge Wells. That’s been converted into a Wild West diner.

The old station building is in the background, complete with tower.

We were there for a ‘Day out with Thomas’. On 11^th may 2013.

The first bit of steam we saw was George. This steam roller is one of Thomas’s friends.

With a maker’s plate I can tell you that George was built in 1923 and his real name is Ebeneezer. I liked the water gauges.

In the shed an engine called Ugly carried a plastic face.

Ugly was built in 1950 and used at the Corby steel works. He’s not really anything to do with Thomas.

This engine is pretending to be Percy. His face looks a whole lot better than the one on Ugly – but Percy he is not. All agreed he’s the wrong colour green. I’m afraid he has too many wheels for Percy. I didn’t get the engine’s real identity – but he was popular with visitors.

One of Thomas’s friends is called Jinty. Jinties were very common shunting engines on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.

This one was built in 1927.

A family group with Thomas and Percy.

Now Thomas is interesting. He, originally, was of a type known as an austerity and would have looked like this.

(This was in 2003 at Wittersham Road on the Kent and East Sussex Railway).

Thomas is a rebuild of an engine just like this.

On our journey down to Kent we had been chatting about Thomas and I had said that I thought he was hired in and travelled from railway to railway for these Thomas events.

‘How are they moved?’ I was asked. My belief was that they went on low loaders on the road.

And very soon afterwards, as we raced east on the A303, a Schools Class loco headed west past us. It was number 925, Cheltenham which has a home on the Mid Hants Railway. But it is going to a festival on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway. It flitted by us in an instant on the back of its lorry – but that engine looked classy.

Now this is in the shed at Tunbridge Wells West – not the first time I had been in that and we see locos and carriages under repair. We have the wheels, and beyond it the frames of an old favourite of mine – a Stroudley Terrier. I knew this engine as number 32650 but when built in the 1870s she had been number 50 and called Whitechapel. She was withdrawn from service in 1963 and bought by the town of Sutton and renamed Sutton. The description on the Spa Valley web site says she is ‘under restoration’.

This view shows that most of the engine is elsewhere!

More to follow!