Heritage Open Days and Rail 200

The Halesworth to Southwold Narrow Gauge Railway CIO is holding a Railway 200 day and Model Railway Show at Blythburgh Station – the principal intermediate station on the historic Southwold Railway – on September 14th 2025. The railway opened in 1879 and closed in 1929. The HSNGR is celebrating Railway 200 by demonstrating to the public how much change we have made on this site, from complete dereliction in 2019, towards the restoration of this historic station for passenger use.

The passenger platform and running-in board have been rebuilt, track and sidings laid alongside (in the original railway’s unusual three-foot gauge, (which was originally chosen to allow good-sized passenger stock providing a comfortable 8-mile journey), the 1879 station holly hedge re-found and saved, and the passenger-service signal shed rebuilt on its original foundations.

The train staff which allowed passenger trains to use the line here has been reproduced from the original, and is again used in what is locally known as “the ceremony of the keys”. The replica double-armed signal is again acting as a starter for trains.

Visitors can sit in the charity’s first passenger coach, under construction, and experience its features, and its relationship to the historically-significant passenger stock on the original railway.

There is a model railway show in the adjacent Village Hall, railway films concentrating on passenger provision, displays of HSNGR’s achievements and our advanced plans to provide a passenger service along the original trackbed, as well as refreshments. The solar-charged battery-electric locomotive -which will haul our first passenger train service once that is permitted – will provide demonstration trains and shunting.

The Open Day – in keeping with the nationally-significant Railway 200 effort to reach as large an audience as possible, will be free to enter – and the light refreshments will also be free. Donations are of course welcome!