The Route Today
In 2010 the original station building at Wells was a second-hand bookshop and pottery, with the site of the platforms used as an industrial estate known as Great Eastern Way. The old corn mill was used as a furniture warehouse, before being converted into flats. Part of the ground floor is occupied by Wells Antiques Centre and Glaven Veterinary Centre.
Work on rebuilding a section of the line as the narrow gauge Wells and Walsingham Light Railway between a point south of the former level crossing over the A149 Coast Road at Wells and a point just north of the original Walsingham station started in 1979. A section of the route, known locally as 'Barnard's Cutting', had been filled with refuse and had to be excavated before the track could be restored. The excavation of 3,000 tons of waste did not return the trackbed to its original level, resulting in a severe 1 in 29 gradient that had not existed when the line was originally in use. Services over this section resumed on 6 April 1982, with purpose built steam locomotive Pilgrim, an 0-6-0T engine built at North Walsham, launching the public service.
The 1 in 29 gradient created during the restoration of the route was restored to the original 1 in 60 by engineers from the National Construction Training College removing 17,000 tons of material in 1999. The original station building at Walsingham is currently (2010) home to St. Seraphim's Russian Orthodox church.
The line between Walsingham and County School railway station is derelict, although the track bed is mostly intact from County School to Fakenham, and is reserved by the local council for railway use. County School station has been restored to LNER condition and is open to the public, but is isolated from the rest of the line and no trains operate at the site. The 11.5 miles (18.5 km) line between Dereham and Wymondham are owned and operated by the Mid-Norfolk Railway, and this Trust also owns the further 6 miles (10 km) of disused railway to County School station near North Elmham, although there is a break of around a mile between North Elmham and County School where the track is no longer in situ. This makes the Mid-Norfolk Railway one of the longest heritage railways in the United Kingdom.
Read more about this topic: Wymondham To Wells Branch
Famous quotes containing the words route and/or today:
“A route differs from a road not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it is merely a line that connects one point with another. A route has no meaning in itself; its meaning derives entirely from the two points that it connects. A road is a tribute to space. Every stretch of road has meaning in itself and invites us to stop. A route is the triumphant devaluation of space, which thanks to it has been reduced to a mere obstacle to human movement and a waste of time.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The late Président de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind—he had been so for such a long time—but I swear that I do not know how to be deaf: I cannot get used to it, and I am as humiliated and distressed by it today as I was during the first week. No philosophy in the world can palliate deafness.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)