Bluebells Bloom for Sixtieth Anniversary
Friday August 7 2020 will mark 60 years since the Bluebell Railway ran its first public train. At 2.30pm on August 7 1960, LBSCR ‘Terrier’ No. 55 Stepney headed a train consisting of two coaches - LSWR Third No. S320 and Maunsell Brake No. S6575 - with SECR P Class No. 323 at the rear, from Sheffield Park to a makeshift halt just outside Horsted Keynes, running in push-pull mode. For the rest of the 1960 season this train formed the railway’s entire rolling stock.
The Bluebell thus became the first society to show to BR’s Southern Region management at Waterloo that volunteers could take over and operate a section of its former line – something that would be followed by several others around the UK before the end of that decade. What happened to get to that momentous stage in the history of railway preservation?
The little-used former secondary route between Lewes and East Grinstead remained a rural backwater
