Bank Holiday Monday fun at Buckinghamshire Railway Centre

GWR loco no.6695 will be coming to us for the event from Swindon & Cricklade Railway and she will be running from our newly re-instated Quainton Road Platform 1.

What's more, she will be the first engine we have steamed from this platform since 1969 when services to Quainton Road stopped.

For the first time in decades, trains will be able to run from the original Quainton Road platform here at Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. And it’s all thanks to our collaboration with Network Rail, HS2, EKFB and Buckinghamshire Council.

It all started with the brick road bridge behind the station platform, which became unsafe in recent years and needed a 3-ton weight restriction imposed. The bridge has now been infilled with concrete to make it safe for road traffic, and it has now been given some aesthetic murals to lessen the visual impact of the concrete infill (see photos).

Although the bridge infilling has put an end to our ambitions to extend our running line towards Verney Junction (the original end of the old Metropolitan line), it does mean that we have instead been able to obtain a 5-year rolling lease on 0.5 mile of the former main line track, which runs through the middle of our site, allowing us to put to use our beautiful Grade I-listed Victorian station building.

Our permanent way engineers have been busy laying points and new track to link our up and down yard running lines to the only remaining surviving former Metropolitan/Great Central joint track; and this means we are able to connect both sides of our site for the first time ever!

We are launching the ‘new’ line at Auto Fest, our Bank Holiday Monday event, on 26th August, where Tim Dunn, presenter of Secrets of the Underground and The Architecture the Railways Built will be officially cutting the ribbon! So if you'd like to come and witness this historic event, please come along and see it with your own eyes!

Enjoy our Classic Car Rally as well, with over 200 vehicles exhibiting, with live bands and music all day, steam train rides, our Railway Museum, the miniature and model railways, the travelling post office, the visitor centre, cafe and gift shop, the second hand bookshop and all the engines, carriages and railway buildings around the site!

There will be bus rides from Parkway to coincide with the trains from Marleybone.

There's so much to see!

More event details at www.bucksrailcentre.org