FOBS Monthly News - September 08


Brandon Station is Best: It’s Official
For the third year running Brandon Station has won an award. But this year it's not second prize, or Highly Commended, but the Best! Only two and a half years since it was ‘adopted’ by local volunteers, Brandon Station scooped the top award from train operators National Express East Anglia. At the annual Adopters’ Awards ceremony in Norwich on Friday 5 September, Brandon beat off competition from stations on the picturesque Bittern and East Suffolk lines to win Best Station in the ‘medium’ category.

The success is due mostly to the spectacular flower displays created by secretary Ken Drane, particularly the station name picked out in flowers. But in giving the award the judges also look at the involvement of the station in community life. FOBS (Friends of Brandon Station) have been working hard to make the station known, with such events as ‘See the steam train’ (two successful events so far, and another one just before Christmas), car boot sales, and a planned film show (see below). The station also featured in the recent Dad’s Army celebrations in July, when star Bill Pertwee and a Routemaster bus load of fans visited the site of the episode The Big Parade which was filmed there.

From being a drab and unattractive place only a few years ago, Brandon station is becoming something the town and the area (it is actually in Weeting parish) can be proud of. The long term aim is to obtain funding to restore and reopen the building for community and other uses, and a feasibility study by Keystone Development Trust is shortly to be completed.

The more people visit the station, the more likely it is to develop into something really special. The more public support there is to restore it, the stronger our case. And this support doesn't amount just to admiring the flowers and the murals, and watching trains: the station is there to be used! After the cuts of the 1960s Brandon is very lucky to have a station with a good train service when towns like Watton and Swaffham long ago lost theirs.

Train travel has reputation for being expensive, but group fares, railcards for families and old people, and other special offers can bring the price down quite considerably. You don't have to pay for car parking or petrol, and you can be in Cambridge, Ely or Norwich quickly and in comfort. A Senior Return to Norwich is only £5.95. The weekend trains to the RSPB at Lakenheath cost only £2.40 return and you can have the fun of making the train stop just for you at Lakenheath - it's a request stop!

FOR YOUR DIARY:

A Film Show and A Christmas Event
We have two forthcoming events. First, a film show with a railway theme in the Leisure Centre. Planned date: 17 October. Tickets will be reasonably priced. The plan is to have a short film of local railway interest, and then a full-length feature with a railway theme, the classic Brief Encounter. Then on 20 December, Come and sing carols and watch the steam train! The Cathedrals Express Carol Special is passing behind the glamorous blue engine 'Sir Nigel Gresley'. Fortified with hot punch and mince pies, we aim to sing it on its way, with a band if we can get one.

Car Boot Sales
Watch out too for car boot sales at the station. We were unlucky with the weather with the first one in July, and as I write another one has just taken place. Others are planned for the future.


Article Written by Stephen Dean:
Tel:01842 815372 or Email:stephendean@decanimusic.co.uk