Over the weekend a new steam railway opened in Essex. The Epping to Ongar railway was a branch off the Central line on the London Underground.
It ran until September 1994 when it was closed as a loss-maker and it looked like it may be lifted and lost for good.
A private company stepped in and bought the line promising to start running trains within 5 years. This never happened and it fell to a group of enthusiasts to get the trains running again using a Epping Ongar Railway liveried DMU.
This continued till 2008 when a change of ownership occurred and the decision was made to close the line so that major works could be carried out before the line was re-opened to public running.
As well as the infrastructure work the locomotive stud was expanded to include ex-GWR Hall "Pitchford Hall", ex-GWR Large Prairie no 4141 and Diesel Class 37 no. D6729. This has pitched the railway into the front line of preserved railways in the country.
I have not yet been able to visit but hope to do so in the next few weeks but in the mean time it's worth having a look at their website eorailway.co.uk
I have also found a set of nice photo's from the weekend on Flickr
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