SPA VALLEY RIDES

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2019 :: RMTnews 28 The busy Spa Valley Railway (SVR) is a standard gauge heritage railway that runs from Tunbridge Wells West railway station to Eridge where part of the way, uniquely, it runs alongside the mainline railway. You can access the line by mainline trains operated by Southern Railway to Eridge and cross platforms to journey through the stunning High Weald Countryside pulled today by steam loco Ugly a 0-6-0ST No. 62 built by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns in 1950. Ugly is operated today by driver Jamie Craig, a young man who has been a driver for three years, and fireman Jonnie Pay, another young man who doubles up as SVR commercial manager. Jamie explains that the line is unusual in that most driving crews for their steam and diesel units are staffed by young people. “But it is important to remember that the SVR is always looking for volunteers to keep the line going as all this would be impossible without them,” he says between regular runs on the line throughout the day. The SVR experience has a lot to offer at every stop, including the beautiful village of Groombridge and award- winning gardens, extraordinary sandstone formations at High Rocks and the Georgian splendour of The Pantiles in central Tunbridge Wells just a stroll away. The five-mile line straddles the Kent and East Sussex border along the former Wealden Line between Tunbridge Wells Central and Lewes. It was conceived as part of the ‘railway mania’ of the mid- Victorian period, where competing companies raced to access the town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, and spawned an alphabet soup of acronyms along the way! The railway was built by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's (LB&SCR) as part of the East Grinstead, Groombridge and Tunbridge Wells Railway (EGGTWR), itself an extension to the Three Bridges to East Grinstead Railway which had been completed in 1855. But the line was closed by the 1980s by British Rail before the Tunbridge Wells and Eridge Railway Preservation Society (TWERPS!) formed in 1985 to purchase and partly reopen the line from Tunbridge Wells West to Eridge. SPA VALLEY RIDES The Spa Valley heritage railway has a destination at every station Driver Jamie Craig and fireman Jonnie Pay