The Torbay Coast Boat Train - 18th April 2009
A Day Trip organized by Nenta Traintours of North Walsham.
There were fifteen people waiting for a train at Brandon on Saturday 18 April - not unusual, until I add that the time was 5.30 am and the sun wasn't up. They were there at this ungodly hour to board the first of two seaside excursion trains calling here this year. It was so early because the final destination of the train was South Devon.
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This was a first for Brandon. - NENTA Tours of North Walsham (www.nentatraintours.co.uk) have been running excursion trains for years but have never stopped at our station. FOBS asked, and NENTA Tours were happy to agree to our request. Let’s hope the number of travellers justified the stop and they will do this again.
It was a beautiful day and those who took all the add-on tours got a ride on a steam railway and a cruise on the River Dart as well. Everything went beautifully until the train approached Westbury, a long way from home, on the return journey. Thick smoke was billowing from under the front engine, which you would expect from a steam engine but not from a diesel. A lineside spectator said that six foot high flames were spurting forth at one point.
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The train limped into the station and all the passengers told to leave their seats. All fire extinguishers on board were emptied, the ones on the station were locked up, and when the fire brigade turned up they had to use hydraulic cutters to get through the station fence. It took about three hours to sort everything out: dampen down the fire, park the damaged engine and find another one which coupled up at Reading.
The Torbay Express reached Ely at 1.30 am instead of the expected ten to eleven. And there it had to stop, because engineering work meant the line to Norwich was closed! So Brandon passengers and those further east came back home on hastily-arranged coaches. Well, these things happen.
There’s another Nenta trip on Saturday, May 30, going from Norwich to York, Beamish & Holy Island. It doesn’t come through Brandon but you can book from here and take a connecting train. See the Nenta website.