The Dean Forest Railway is a 41⁄4-mile (6.8 km) long heritage railway that currently runs between Lydney and Parkend in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.
The route was part of the former Severn and Wye Railway which ran from Lydney to Cinderford. The society that operates the line started steam locomotive operations in 1971, and bought the trackbed and line from British Rail in 1986. Reaching Both Lydney Junction and Parkend train stations by 1995 and 2005 respectively. Trains are operated by both steam and heritage diesel locomotives, and heritage diesel multiple units.
The Dean Forest railway has recently been given the former GWR signal box that stood slightly to the east of Codsall station in Staffordshire. Its removal was completed in July 2007, and will be placed at Whitecroft railway station.
CrossCountry are now providing a combined fare for travel to Lydney mainline station (on CrossCountry services only) and then onto the Dean Forest Railway.
In the future, the Dean Forest Railway plans to extend its heritage services a further 21⁄2 miles (4.0 km) through/into the middle of the Royal Forest at Speech House Road (close to the nearby Beechenhurst Visitor Attraction), bringing the line to a total of over 7 miles.
Read more about Dean Forest Railway: Stations and Junctions, Locomotives
Famous quotes containing the words dean, forest and/or railway:
“Confession, alas, is the new handshake.”
—Richard Dean Rosen (b. 1949)
“The forest of Compiegne. Look at it. Like a kind grandmother dozing in her rocking chair. Old trees practicing curtsies in the wind because they still think Louis XIV is king.”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)