Kent & East Sussex Railway in Tenterden kicks off their weekend gala

KentOnline / KMTV

Passengers get a trip down memory lane as well as an actual trip through the Kentish countryside, and some get the chance to drive the engines for themselves.  Finn Macdiarmid reports

Transcript

00:00You might think you've travelled back in time, but we've actually been travelling forward

00:17on passenger trains for almost 200 years, which the Kenton East Sussex Railway in Tentadon

00:22are celebrating with a three-day gala this weekend.

00:25I mean, we traditionally celebrate the 1930s, the 1950s, but this year works because it's

00:31Rail 200, which is a celebration of the full story of railways.

00:36We fast-forwarded to the late 1980s, 1990s.

00:39It was a day of bright colours, bold colours, fast diesels, and trying to reconnect the commuter

00:48belt of London, and Kent was very much part of that.

00:53So it's an opportunity to really travel back in time to the 1980s and 1990s.

01:00And for many of us, that's real nostalgia.

01:02Thumper, Teddy Bear, the Royal Oak, and a freight trainer, just some of the engines lined up

01:06for trips throughout the Kent countryside, but it's not just the trains that are a new site

01:10for the station.

01:11Well, we've got a wide variety of vintage diesel locomotives here today, which is not

01:16to everybody's taste, but for me, as a product of the 1960s and 70s, I love diesels.

01:21And I walked up the road today from the car park, looked in, saw this amazing Network South

01:28East Tentadon town sign, this fantastic Class 50 mainline diesel engine.

01:32Sitting here in Network South East livery, the biggest locomotive we've ever had on the

01:36Cantonese Sussex Railway.

01:37And I can honestly say it's one of the most exciting things I've seen all week.

01:41I'll probably need to get out more, but it's absolutely brilliant.

01:44And Murray's old boss on the railways, Nigel, said it was the small engineering details

01:49that he loved about the trains.

01:50I mean, although she's not cold this morning because she's been running, she will give

01:54a lovely display as she starts up.

01:57And that's the thing that gets you, and that's why I like railways, and diesel locomotives

02:03especially.

02:04But what's more fun than looking at antique trains?

02:07Driving one.

02:08I had a quick lesson, and we were off.

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