 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm down the end of the platform at Chroma Station. In today's video, we're going to go and find the only standard gauge railway tunnel in Norfolk and we're going to have a look at some of the stations at Chroma past and present. So we're currently at the town's second station, which is quite nicely. The signal box survives. There's a little museum there of signaling. They've changed the turn signals so they're perpendicular to the railway, just not to confuse any drivers from today's colour light. So that way is looking towards Sherringham and Norwich. Just up there you can turn left for Norwich and go straight on for Sherringham. So this station was originally called Chroma Beach Station. The reason being is, well, one, it's near at the beach and two, it was the town's second station. It opened on 16th for June 1887. The other station, Chroma High, which we're going to go and probably not see much of but go and have a look at the site of, was the town's first station. And then, and that would have been off the line from Norwich. So as I came on the train just now from Norwich, I went past the site of the junction. There's not much to see from the train's window, but we're going to wander up there. But more excitingly, there was a line built from, over from Mondersley to Chroma and that went for a tunnel under that railway. So that has been the only ever standard gauge railway tunnel in Norfolk, but it's not the only one because I'll get onto that later. There is another railway tunnel currently in Norfolk. We're not going to go there today, but I'll talk about it later. We're just going to make our way off the end of, of this station. So, although it appears as a terminus station, it is actually not quite the end of the line for the trains. The trains come in and out. If they're going to Sherringham, they then go out again and continue to Sherringham. And occasionally, North Norfolk Railway at Sherringham, which is, whose station is across the road from the main line station, sometimes runs trains onto this line. So you can actually occasionally get a steam train down here. So we get to the end. We've very much come to, as I say, looks like the end of the line, but technically it's not the end of the line for trains. They continue. We leave the station. Well, this was the old station hotel. It looks like it's boarded up now. It's a bit of a shame. We're going to head off through the town and have a look around to make my way uphill to find the site of the old Chroma High Station. I've now been walking for the past 20 minutes or so up a hill. People who say Norfolk is flat possibly don't know too much about Norfolk because there's hills everywhere in Norfolk. They're just not the same sort of altitude you'd find in other parts of the UK. Now the station we're looking for is Chroma High and that's appropriate because we've been coming up high. I believe it was up there. There's not a great deal to see, but if you look at this path, well firstly you've got a post here, made out of an old railway sleeper and there's an old bit of rail. That path doesn't appear to go anywhere, so I think what we'll do, we'll continue to follow the road and have a look at Chroma High. So Chroma High was the first railway station to reach the town, a bit inconvenient from the town centre because I said 15 minute, 20 minute walk, well 15 minute downhill, 20 minute uphill from the town centre. So yeah it wasn't perfect, but it opened in 1877, but then it closed to passengers in 1954 and then eventually closed to goods in 1960. Now here is a clue. If we have a look ahead of us, across the road we can do better bridge abutments on both sides. So a bit of a skewed bridge, imagine the trains, like a B1 pulling out the station with a few carriages heading either towards Norwich or Mundersley. So this is where it have come over us here and then I'm just right beside the abutment here. If I can get to the other side of the road we have to have a look as to where it went. Let's get across again. So that is the old bridge abutments just there off the line. Now the line would have continued in that direction and it was what happened when the line later, the Norfolk and Suffolk line, they opened their railway to Chroma and they had to cross this line so they went under it. So what I'm going to do now, I'm just going to walk along around here and I'm going to try and see if there's anything where Chroma High was. It's getting windy here. I'd asked her there was literally nothing there. There's some cottages to the railway line that have gone behind these cottages and then just up here I think half the site has been built off. The other half of the site is just complete waste of ground. Let's have a look see if we can see. I think it's going to be behind this hedge, so whether we're going to be able to see anything. So there's not really much of Chroma High left but the exciting bit is the tunnel that we're going to go and look for next. So yeah let's hope this hedge ends. There we are. So that would also take me back down to Chroma Town Centre and here we go. Really nothing to see but just for the point of the video. That is the site of Chroma High Station. I'm going to head back that way towards those bridge abutments and from there we're going to sort of follow the old line and we're going to go and find the tunnel. So I've come back to this road corner again. Just over there was the Scoop Ridge. The railway line would have gone off behind here and as I said the station would have been just over there. I think you'd have access to the station from going down here because if you look here we have station road. If you could confuse people now because if they were looking for the current Chroma Railway station and went to station road they wouldn't find any trains. The best they might find is the bus to take them there. So the railway line from Chroma High, that very first railway to reach for town would have run behind us. It's not really much of a path. I'm going to shout now because it's getting really windy. But it's what went under this line that we're interested in. It was the line from Mundersley. We have a railway bridge and this is where the tunnel should be. So we can see it's clearly in a cutting going by the railway bridge. But what I'm hoping to do is have a look at the tunnel. So this is a modern bridge. It should be. There we go. Just there is the Chroma Tunnel. A moment ago I was just up there pretty guessing what I've done. Come down. That's the road bridge and there in all its glory in front of us is the only standard gauge railway tunnel in Norfolk. Now the title of the video has only ever been one railway tunnel in Norfolk. It's sort of true and it isn't. This is the only ever standard gauge railway tunnel in Norfolk, which as I walk into it's nice and cool. By the way I just walked down the side there. There's nothing saying don't come down here. So here we are inside the only standard gauge railway tunnel in Norfolk. But I said it's not the only one because there was also there's the Buer Valley Railway, which I have visited in the past. Now have a look at the link on screen now. That's one of my archive videos. That's when I visited the railway back in 2003 and I passed through a tunnel. Now that tunnel is clearly shown but that's a modern tunnel. When that Buer Valley Railway was a standard gauge railway there was no tunnel. It was when the line was rebuilt as a narrow gauge line the Elton Bypass was built and rather than level crossing they built a tunnel. So that's the other tunnel but this is the only ever purpose is purpose as well but you don't mean the only ever main line tunnel has ever been in Norfolk and here I am. I mean it's quite exciting. It's a bit sort of rubbish at this end. So that way it's looking towards Mandersley and I'm now going to have to make my way back through the tunnel back up to the road and we'll go and try and get as close as we can to the junction with this line to where it joins the current line at Rowton Road. So this is the line to Mandersley. It was the last line to be built to reach the town. It opened as late as 1906 but closed in 1953. There was a line from North Walsham to Mandersley and then this was like an extension onwards but then this closed and then Mandersley back to North Walsham closed but had it stayed open trains could have potentially come this way and serve Mandersley and yes it meant the line via Gunton could have closed. It would be a longer route but the bigger town of Mandersley would have had a railway but anyway it hasn't and here we are exploring the only railway, only standard gauge railway tunnel in Norfolk. I'm going to head back through the tunnel now and we're going to go and find the junction with the existing standard gauge railway. I was wanting to do this standing in one of these alcoves just in case like a ghost train or something comes along though that's going to happen though. There's a couple of things just here. Now just see these posts. These would have carried the signalling wires through the tunnel which is quite unusual or certainly some form of line-side cabling because there was a junction, oh it's all gone bright but that way quarter of a mile there was a junction so it must have carried I, my guess would be maybe getting in that alcove difficult because you'd basically have tripwires I reckon they would have carried wires, the signalling tensioning wires to the possibly the distant signal for the junction. There was also another hole that way but that's a video from another day. Perhaps one day we'll try and explore the old railway towards Mundersley back to Norfolk but today I'm just exploring Krohmer. So we're coming back to this end you can see the foot we will be able to see the lights playing funny games with us. We come out here you'll be able to see the footbridge, pretty sandy down here. I've got to now climb back up the side of the cutting. Something's in the wrong place at the moment let's get out here. So yeah there we go that's the footbridge where I was a moment ago that's the road bridge so I'm going to continue that way and as I said it's all now blocked by houses as a housing estate we'll walk through that housing estate and I'll show you where the railway went then we're going to go to the most modern station in Krohmer route and road but before let's have one last look at the tunnel. So after all that fun of messing around in the tunnel this part of the video probably doesn't look anything like as exciting I'm just walking through a fairly normal looking housing estate but it was through this housing estate which the railway line would have run it would have run along the back of these houses so these houses here have the garden their garden is partly old railway. I'm going to head that way briefly taught up here the ridgeway to have a look at the track bed so see where that fence is straight across there there wouldn't have been a level crossing because I think this estate would have been here certainly not that part of the state because they look newer so if I stand here yeah I can see the bridge would have been directly that way I can recognize the trees from the other side of the tunnel and the railway would have continued that way so not really not very obvious that this was an old railway and a moment ago I just heard the train on the current Norwich to sharing him line so what we'll do we'll we know we're close so I'm going to head that way up to those woods and that's where we'll have a look for the site of route and road junction well I've come out of the housing estate and you see I've come into some woodland just about coming to the end of the bluebell season as for this railway we've got a bit more evidence um a bit more obvious than it was in the housing estate see here has clearly a fence um and this is the track bed now over there's a sign saying do not trespass on the railway I'm not going to go beyond this fence just because I'm not entirely sure where network rails boundary whether it's there or here so we won't go beyond this fence but if you look that way through that's heading back towards the tunnel you can clearly see the depression in the ground and then just over there it's hard to show you but just over there where it's really right that's where the network rail line is the train went past now we'd we'd certainly see it so we just follow the edge of this fence for what we can this is route and road junction or the site of route and road junction that it ceased to be a junction in 1953 if we get through to here I'm just trying to find some a bit more obvious um without obviously trespassing yeah so you can quite clearly see the track beds there so where are those those houses over there there is some more houses they're on the other side of the current network rail line so the junction would have been here that's probably signal box here everything but this junction ceased to be a junction in 1953 route and road junction closed but the name route and road did reappear as we shall make our way out these woods and we'll go and find what route and road means today I've just found another better view of route and road junction see line just there going towards Norwich that way I've gone straight on towards the tunnel over there is railway station let's go and have a look at that now that was a rather pleasant walk through the woods but as I come down to little lane here there's a rather ornate looking railway bridge on the line it goes to and Sherringham and down to Chroma so have a look there that's the railway bridge now what we're going to do we're going to go under that railway bridge and I can be a bit lazy now I don't actually have to walk it's about a mile away from Chroma town centre I said about name route and road reappearing well there from the station here in 1985 so Chroma had two stations again so this is route and road I've never been to a station before so let's go and discover this station there's a map there and that's I could have done with this map because what I had to do was I basically drew my own map but have a look at that when we get on the platform so we're there you can see that's the line over towards Mundersley Chroma high would have been there it's a really blank space in the map that's like Chroma high station so as you can see route from road stations there Chroma town centre's there the railway goes all the way around here that way goes to Sherringham there was also wants a direct side of a like a triangle there I'm not going to do that in today's video the great if they relayed that it would mean they could run full length rail tours to North Norfolk Railway occasionally rail tours do run to the North Norfolk Railway but due to the length of the station at Chroma they can't be more than a certain amount of carriages so you can't get the sort 12 coach usual length of a rail tour you normally get so that's why they don't rarely that's why rarely they run rail tours up here so here we are we are now coming up to um Routham Road station train snorched that way which I'll have to do later but I'm going to go that way to West Ronton and Sherringham just because I can really so it's a small little station and also if we go to the end of platform we should be able to see a better view of Routham Road junction so it's quite nice we heard a junction name disappeared in 1953 the name Routham Road came back so a moment ago we were kind of over there these woods are all public if if you ever came to Chroma so you funted a little bit of a walk and a bit of fun you could actually get out here and walk the way I did or the other way around so I'll be catching a class 755 I've done a few videos of them in the past um so do have a look at link on screen actually I'll see that as soon as we're here let's just have a quick look this little map I drew so you can basically see everything so I've drawn out all the railways past and present I'm going to sit here now wait for my train back down to Chromatown Centre so I hope you enjoyed this video thank you very much for watching please do feel free to like subscribe and comment and from the newest railway station in Chroma Routham Road goodbye