 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm standing on a bridge above the M25 between Heathrow Airport and Chertsea. You may be able to see that bridge just there. That suspension bridge carries the railway line from Virginia Water down towards Waibridge over the M25. Now, people who are interested in railways do tend to notice it, because it's unusual to see the suspension bridge. But what they may also notice is that they continue along the M25 anti-clockwise, just down here, there's a little hill. And if you look at that hill closely, you'll see there's a miniature railway around the bottom of it. That hill is Cockrow Hill, and that is the home of the Great Cockrow Railway. So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to jump in my larder, which is parked here, and go for a little drive round the corner to visit the Great Cockrow Railway. So, the Great Cockrow Railway started life in 1946. It was set up by a man called John Samuel. But it wasn't at his present site. It was at his home called Greywood over in Walton on Thames. He had quite an extensive railway known as the Greywood Central Railway, built to seven and a quarter inch gauge. But then what happened? When he passed away in 1962, Ian Allen, the famous publisher of the ABCs, the train spotters book, he came to the rescue and he purchased the railway and moved it to this site we're going to today. It was a former piggery over near Chertsey in a little village called Lines. It was about a mile away from Chertsey. So, we're just going to continue along here until we come to the railway. So, in the mid-1960s, they began rebuilding the railway, starting from Hardwick Central. And it's gradually extended and got longer over the years to the point that you've got what we'll have to take. Quite an extensive railway. Here we are. You can see the tourist sign. It says Open and Steam Trains Today, which is what we're going to see. So, we're just pulling in now. You can just see ahead of us the new station building at Hardwick Central, which they've had built. And there's a few people there waiting to get on the train. So, we're going to go and park the car. And we're going to go and ride the two routes. There's two routes here. There's the Green Route and the Red Route. So, if you want to do all the track here, you effectively need to do both routes. So, that's what we're going to do here today. So, I've arrived here at the Great Cockerell in my larder. There's the station building, which is quite new. Certainly, when I last visited here, I think it was about 2008. I last visited. It's another plastic car in the car park. It wasn't here. So, what we're going to do, we're going to buy our tickets. As I said, there's two trips to Green Route and Red Route. We're going to do both. This is the new station building. The platform here has the feeling of being at a... That's a disused road, but it's not a disused road. And there's a tea route in there so you can... It's afterwards. I'll probably sit and have a tea and cake and watch trains go by, or it's a very nice thing to do anywhere like this. So, we're going to walk up here. It's even complete with signal. So, let's go and see what we can see. So, yeah, the tea room's in there. I think there's toilets and everything, and the ticket office is here. So, this is not a disused station. This is the new miniature railway station, but the station isn't miniature, just a railway. So, there's the signal box, a signal rather. And there's a mile post. Now, we're coming to here to the ticket office. There's a local, probably a new deal, called Longwell, on display here. So, I'll buy my ticket in there. In a second, there's some various books to buy. Oh, no, this is interesting, no? Talk about Ian Allen. This isn't ABC. So, this is the books that Ian Allen produced, and I suppose it was money for making these books. And he was running a travel agent, which eventually paid to relocate the Great Copper Railway here. So, I'm going to go and buy my ticket, and let's go for a train ride. I bought two, actually, two rides. So, we go out here, there's a little garden railway. Down there, which is quite a nice addition. Oh, you put 50p in the slot. There's one here. So, put 50p in, maybe I'll do that later, and then get the train going around. So, what we're going to do, we're going to go around here. Now, as I said, there's two routes. If you have a look, there's two queues. There's a green arrow, not as in the steam locomotive, and a red arrow. I'm going to go for a ride on the red route, so each ticket you buy, which I've just dropped, each ticket you buy is valid for one of the rides. So, I'm going to go and do the red route. Let's go and ride the Great Copper Railway. I've just boarded the train. My locomotive's ahead of us. So, we're going to go for a ride on the red route. So, I'm very excited about this. It's been more than 10 years since I was last here. It's a really nice, busy station. There's another train there where I haven't got a local yet. And there's some that have just come in. So, it's really quite exciting. It has the atmosphere of a really busy railway station. Looks like it's time for us to go now. It's just up there. The Millelium Line runs right around there in the past. The hill just over there, that is Cockro Hill itself. Now, we can't see it because of the trees and bushes, but you might be able to hear it. The M25 is just behind there. So, it's been on the M25, but I had spotted this hill and always wondered what it was. Couldn't just see our locomotive. Just going off to the turntables up there. So, the local return and then... ...training the other platform, that was the one... ...the local we passed, Wenzydales, we came in. So, they've got their local, so they can depart for the journey back to Hardwick Central. So, there's a little signal box. That's a signal box. It has a lever frame from the Waterloo and City Line. I'll talk about the other signal boxes because there's one at Everglade Junction and there's one at Hardwick Central. I'll point them out when we get back there. I can just see our local. It's turned round now. It's turned round. So, what I'm going to do, I'm going to go past and then it'll be time for us to ride back around the system, see a bit more of the track we haven't yet seen to Hardwick Central. Right, Cockerella. There's still one or two locomotives out, but most of them have gone back into the shed and most of the visitors have gone home. It's been very enjoyable, though, to visit. It's very interesting. It's all fully signalled. I mentioned earlier about the signal box down at Cockerella Hill. Over there, that's the Hardwick Central signal box, which has a lever frame from Crew South, I believe. And over there, at Everglade Junction, which you pass through, they have a lever frame, fully working Westinghouse frame from Croydon, South Croydon, I think. What we're going to do now, though, we're going to go and just walk back out the front of the station. So, there's the shed. You can see a black five there. There's another north-eastern steam locomotive there. There's no one waiting in the queue. When I came on early, it was quite busy. One thing they do is they do a loyalty car, which is quite good. So, what you do, you get stamps on each ride. So, I've got two rides today, so you can come and have a free ride. So, it's worth coming here quite a few times and having quite a few rides, especially if you want to clear your winning locos. So, what I'm going to do now... I had a cup of tea earlier, so I'll just show you and cakes. I'll show you the tea room, because that's quite nice. I'm going to walk along here, and we'll go and see what's going on down this end. There's not a lot more, because I've pretty much... Everyone's gone home. Look, the car park's empty. My larder's one of the only cars left in the car park. It's very much, very much worth coming to visit this railway. It's a very interesting railway. Lots of locos running. It's fully interesting from the signalling point of view as well, not just from the railway point of view. Let's see what's going on around here. Over there, there's a Q-class locomotive. Now, the real Q-class... There's only one Q-class locomotive preserved. It's at the Bluebell Railway, and it actually is that one, 30541. If you want to see a video of that, have a look at the link on screen now. You can see that was earlier this year. So, yeah, there's not a lot going on now, because it's the end of the day. I can hear a train coming now. Let's just watch this train go fast, because they make quite a gradient coming. Quite a gradient into the whole of Central. That little tank engine's called Wensleydale. Interesting, because there is the Wensleydale Railway up in Yorkshire, which I've not been on yet. That's the local I travel behind when I did the Green Route, so that's a separate video. If you want to see the Green Route, which I don't talk in, just enjoy a 20-minute steam haul ride through the countryside. So, I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you very much for watching. Do come and visit them yourself. It's a little bit of a walk from Jersey Station, but it's not impossible if you wanted to walk here. So, from the Great Cockro Railway. Oh, there's a carriage being gravity shunted. From the Great Cockro Railway, thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment. Goodbye.