Spa Valley Railway - Latest News

Walk from Groombridge to Eridge stations via Harrison Rocks (path up the side of the rocks off the High Weald landscape trail) and Forge Road( which is a quiet lane) approx 3.5miles. If you require refreshments then Huntsman pub near the Eridge station .

 

Thanks for the recommendation - we did exactly this and it was a lovely walk, would thoroughly recommend it for anybody thinking of adding a stroll to a visit to the Spa Valley (the path past Harrison Rocks is not on Google Maps so if anybody else wants to follow it look on the OS maps website for the route). We managed to time our walk to see the 14.35 ex Eridge pass us at Forge Farm Crossing, which allows a lovely view of the loco sweeping down to you round a couple of curves - see attached photos (although @Jonnie may not be too pleased that 34053 was obviously a little too well cooked at this point and the valves lifted - it happens to the best of us!)
I found the railway to be very well presented - all stations excellently presented in period condition, looking almost as if they've stayed that way since closure by BR. All staff well dressed in period appropriate uniforms, which is not always the case at lines of the Spa Valley's size. It was nice to be able to have a wander through the sheds as well - not something I think many railways offer these days.
A couple of points where I am sure the leadership team have given consideration to these points but I just felt it was worth offering my thoughts.
Firstly, as far as I could tell from the info on the website, the railway would be alternating steam and diesel services with loco swaps at Eridge - but upon arriving at TWW for the 12.45 service it became apparent that 34053 and 73140 would be top and tailing all day. Not a massive thing but I can imagine if I was planning on doing some lineside photography based on thinking one loco was going to be leading on a particular train which wasn't how the top and tail arrangement was, I might be a little confused. A comment from whoever was driving 34053 also suggested the top and tail arrangement had been a late change so that might offer some explanation.
Secondly, when we joined the train for the last departure at Eridge, we found there was only 1 coach (the buffet coach) available for us to travel in. 2 of the 4 coaches were reserved for families partaking in the Easter Egg hunt event (fair enough for Easter weekend!) and a third was reserved for people who had booked for the Kent Cheese train. So for people like us who were attending 'just' for a train ride and not partaking in Easter Egg hunts or Cheese eating, there wasn't a lot of capacity. Admittedly I don't know whether there was a coach reserved for the Kent Cheese train on every trip, and the market for a 'normal' rover traveller might be lower on an Easter weekend, and I appreciate train lengths are constrained by the size of the loop at TWW, but if top and tail operating is going to be in place, is there prospect for adding a fifth coach to ensure there is enough capacity on days like this when there might be 3 coaches booked out for events? Or is that extra capacity just not needed?
And thirdly, there were occasional on train announcements, but we found that they were difficult to hear when the train was in motion as the noise of the train moving kind of drowned them out - is there a volume knob that could be turned up a smidge?
All are minor points and didn't detract from our enjoyment of a lovely day on a lovely railway. I do hope to be back at some point in the future!

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