 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm sat on a train outside Ely station at the moment and there's a bit of congestion There's a freight there and we're waiting to cross over to a platform We're going to have a look at the new railway station at Soham today Which the line to Soham is just over there and there's another freight on the line So waiting to come off so might be a while till we actually get going to Soham But while we're waiting I have something I would like to say to all my viewers and that is thank you very much I've just got to 4,000 subscribers. So really pleased about that a year ago yesterday I made a video at the Lide Garden in Bledlow in Buckinghamshire Saying thank you very much for getting to 2,000 subscribers So if you want to have a look at that then do look at the link on screen now, but yeah 4,000 now, so I'm really pleased about that But now just got to wait till we get into Ely and then we'll get our train We're going to go and visit the newest railway station Soham which opened just over a week ago That's the train we've just arrived on so we're here at Ely There's one of these freight trains, that's the one we could just see the end of See the other end now, see the class 66 So we'll walk up there and have a look at that because we're still waiting For the train to come in from comes from Peterborough It's going to Ipswich but we're only going a few miles up the line to Soham I've never actually been on this line before so I'll have to come back and do the whole line But there's the class 66 on this freight But I don't know how long it'll be to actually get going because As I said, there is another freight on the on the branch at the moment waiting to come off so Let's have to wait and see what happens but anyway, there's There's a freight there class 66 I'm going to wait for my train to arrive now to take me to the new railway station at Soham The train now just departing Ely has the other freight to wait to come off the branch So we are currently surrounded by freight, it's got this freight going that way Welcome to this service for Ipswich We will be calling at Soham, Ferris and Edmonds, Stomarket and Ipswich I have to do the line all the way to Ipswich One day but today I just wanted to get Soham done See the new railway station so I'm going to enjoy the I think it's about seven minutes now to Soham and when we get there we'll get out on the public around the station What I do like about these trains is because they're diesel and electric They're like a little loco thing in the middle So I always think whenever I go on the train on these trains I feel like I have to walk through the loco So you may have seen in previous videos when we went to the Railway up at Wells Harbour we were on a train like this so You go through this corridor which you can hear for diesel engines in the middle So I find that quite fun to walk through it and hear them And then where was the other one? When you get to this carriage here where you have the toilet here And the toilet there So I think we're coming into Soham now So let's see what this new railway station brings And then what we'll do once we've had a look at the station We'll go for a walk around the little town It's meant to be a pleasant market town of about 10,000 people So then we'll have a look See what it's to see really So here we go We're just pulling into Soham now So let's get out and as soon as the train stops see what there is to see We'll walk down there and watch the train pull out first I think So here we are This is Soham station You can see the loco thing we've walked through behind You can get up so there's a footbridge up there Which I think isn't actually part of the station It's like a public right away But let's see what there is to see So if we can get through here We go out the station Now we can watch the loco or the train rather Go park, it'd be nice if it wasn't like I said about enough Just see the beginning of the double track section So it's like pretty good to train watching bridge So excuse me for rushing this bit I want to be on the bridge as the train pulls out And then we'll go back down when there's less people We'll have a look at the station itself So there goes the train You see there the where the line becomes double track So the train coming the other way should be due fairly soon While we're up on the bridge let's have a look down on the station So you can see it's a little single platform station So should they ever redouble this line Plenty of space for a second platform And this may well become the station bridge But I think it's more at the moment It's to preserve the public right away There you go it gives you quite a good view of Soham station Now I don't know if the camera's going to pick it out but Right over there in the distance I can just see Eley Cathedral So what I'm going to do now I'm going to I suppose actually I can take this off car mate Because I'm not in the station I'm on a public footpath I'm going to hang around up here And wait and see the train coming the other way Arrive and depart And just the stones throw away from the new Soham railway station This river is the Soham load It's the river that flows through Soham and the Pan round That's the railway line going that way towards Barrish and Edmunds So I've never been on that track I'll have to do get a train one day from it switch to Peter But to do this line properly Now if we turn around There's the new railway station with its footbridge So this footpath they've built a new footpath Well to here well I assume the footpath was here But they've obviously had to alter it slightly I don't have an OS map of the area So I don't know where it goes But it appears to follow the river off in that direction So I think that is a walk for the summer Otherwise I might be going home with very muddy shoes But it's tarmac to here So if I just get across this bit of a muddy bit And then back on tarmac So let's go and have a proper look at the station It was a bit rushed when I got there I wanted to get out and see it go And there was a lot of people about it It's not a very big station So I walked down this palisade corridor You can see it's all brand new So as for the original station It was opened by the Ealy and Newmarket Railway in 1897 On the 1st of September It lasted until 1965 when it closed There was the Soham disaster I'll come on to that in a minute An incident happened during the war But the station was formally closed in On the 13th of September 1965 And then the 13th of December 2021 It returned to the rail map So what we'll do We'll just have a look It looks very much like And I noticed I came over the bridge A couple of things I said there's talk of redoubling from Ealy to Soham Which I think is probably going to be needed Because if they talk of it increasing it to hourly It doesn't seem to be any freight at the moment But when we got here there were As we knew Ealy we saw there were two freight I don't know what the plan is for this area Whether that will stay as it is Or if it will be a bit more landscapes But what I can show you Now if we come to this bridge At the moment There's obviously no lifts But the station is access for all Because you access it off the road on that side If we stand here You can see Got up a little bit and you can see the station platform So currently Just one station platform But they will if they do double track it Obviously it'll be a second station platform But if you have a look on the bridge See up there It's like a movable panel So if they wanted to install lifts Onto this footbridge They could So the bridge won't need to become useless And so it will potentially be able to come The station footbridge I assume the public right of way Would have to be maintained So probably it's unlikely They ever intend to install ticket barriers here But if they did They might have to change a few things You can see this panel here That could come out And a lift could be put in And I suspect it would be the same Yeah So that kind of would also come out And they could put lifts in I quite like the view you get from here though So what we're going to do We'll go down now And we'll go and have a look at the railway station So here we are Outside the front of the station That's the big New footbridge Which has just been over There's a few Network rail posters showing How I'm about bringing the station back First time since 1965 There's a picture of pretty much What we've just seen The town centre It's just over there I can just see the church So we'll go over And have a look at that There's no ticket office It's just a couple of ticket machines It says platform one But it's the only platform Maybe one day There'll be another platform Interestingly there's a great big gate here So it looks like If no trains were stopping Say like if the line was closed For engineering roads They just closed this gate And you can't go on the platform Infusionists take note So what we're going to do now I there's some It's interesting Oh yeah I said we're going to get onto this Here's a plaque About the Søren rail disaster So um Supposedly as I found the black I ought to talk a bit about that What happened was During the war In 1944 A steam-hauled ammunition train Was coming along here And um It was passing through the town And what happened Was the driver spotted A wagon was on fire Now knowing that he was Carrying munitions He knew that If the fire spread It would blow up the town And could be huge disaster So what they did They uncoupled the wagon The burning wagon And they drove the train forward And um The wagon exploded It destroyed most of the original station The signal box Is now at the mid-Northwood railway So that was only partially destroyed But the point was They stopped there being A very serious tragedy Which you know Could have potentially Injured and killed many people In the town Unfortunately You know the driver and fireman Didn't survive But you know They were heroes for what they did So that is what most people think of When they hear of Soham But right now it seems Soham Everyone's talking about it Because it's back on the rail map So it's not a particularly big station It actually reminds me This bit here reminds me of um If you've ever been to Bista What's now Bista Village Station When it used to be called Just Bista Town Before they upgraded the line It was a bit like this It was basically a platform and a wall The wall was actually the old station building But there really appears to be Nothing left of the original station at all Just um But we have a new station So as I said May one day May well be another platform Along there So um That's looking up the track Towards Ely What I'm going to do now though I'm going to go back to the front station And um We'll go and have a look around the town So from the very rural view We have out over the platform Let's go and explore the town Just back on the disaster So there's this plaque here There's one or two others around the town Which we'll look out for And here's a new fact To say that the station was officially opened On Monday the 13th of December 2021 By the Mayor of Cambridge So um Let's have a look this way Also on the um Subject of the certain disaster The loco hauling the train It was a steam train Because it happened in 1944 It was a WD280 There is one loco like that At the Keithlingworth Alley Railway I think there might be a few other British ones British built ones In other countries But not working But yeah the one that survived Is at the Keithlingworth Alley Railway And even that one I believe it came from Sweden So there's the Whole new station forecourt There's a sign there Says town centre So let's go and find the town centre Just come up the road from the station As I said we're on the way into the town If we cross the road here though Look I've just noticed this road here Is called Station Road And that is probably because It comes from the town to the station But we're using it from the station to the town So we're going to go up here And have a look at the town Here we are in some town centre Just in front of us up there Is St Andrews Church Which I'm hoping We'll be able to go and have a look at So the town's got about 10,000 people But it already had the railway passing through It's not like they've actually opened a new bit of railway So it really seemed a very logical thing All they had to do was just put the station platform there And get the train to stop again It's a bit like a similar situation Happened at Kenilworth That's a bigger town than this But the same thing They basically built a new platform station And train stopped there I visited that a couple of years ago I've looked at it on screen now You can see that one So we're now coming up here Oh yeah, the pub's called The Fountain Now I noticed off Station Road A road, well a lane called Fountain Lane So I can see now why it's called I was named after this pub So we get to here This is Market Street So yeah, it's a market town So I suspect the market would have been held here So we can go and see St Andrews Church And then I'm going to have a little look Further down that river we saw near the station The Sarm Load I want to see if we can see it flowing through the town Which I like rivers as well Right, can we get through the road Get that cost, turn Let's go and see Probably the biggest building in the town Until this St Andrews Church So let's go and have a look There we go There's a sort of park over there It doesn't need some one toned trees In the park I don't know if you can see them They're now behind the other trees So yeah, there's a collided line Tree Avenue Here's the church So I'll have to stop filming To take my hat off and put my face covering on But we'll go in And we'll have a look if we can So here's the church It's open for prayer and visiting So it looks all good Let's see if we can go and see inside There we are inside the parish church Just let you have a look Down the name We're going to have a wander up there In a moment And I just wanted to show you Going back to the Sermon rail disaster Here's a plaque So I'll let you have a look at that So that basically tells the story I think I explained most a bit But if I've missed anything it's in there Nice modern wooden organ they've got there Let's walk up Do really like churches in East Anglia They're always big Sometimes they're what they call corn churches They made a lot of money from the farming And the corn Because there's so much room in East Anglia So in these flat fields They made all this money and they built these churches Although this one's probably fairly small Compared to some of these so-called corn churches Must be modern stained glass window See the time of year I think I'll always remember it was December I came here just before Christmas I'm going to the chance floor I was just locked I don't know if you can go this way There's like a glass door here On the way out So this is the chance floor Very beautiful Maybe it's time to do the heating Because they've Hopefully put a glass screen all the way up there But it doesn't interrupt the flow of your vision Go through to here So this will be the south transect Where the Christmas tree is Even with face coming on I can smell that nice smell of pine needles Traditional sort of Christmas smell So this is St Andrew's Church Go back outside now We'll have a finish looking around town Maybe time to go out the station And get the train back to Ealy Now come down to the other end of the busy high street It's the red line pub It's got one of those things that I was going in You know where you get the mud off your shoes Just here though Is another pack to the Southam disaster Where the ammunition train, you know, exploded But as I said The drive and fire made sure it wasn't a huge explosion Just the one wagon and the others were left behind There's a on this memorial It's like a bit of an artwork Depicting a destroyed train Let you have a look at that And then in front of it is the The war memorial Which most towns and villages have What I'm going to do now though I'm going to head for the road over there Because as I said I want to go and have another look At the Sam Load little river Which flows through the town I think there's another pub there Called The Ship So I'm gathering We're probably going to end up round there If I can follow the river So go and see if that's possible And we've just come down from the main street That's just over there As I said We're going to go and have a look at the river Which flows through the town So we get to here And there it is It kind of opens up into a bit of a pond And there's a lot of ducks So I think if I follow this footpath I might be able to go round in a bit of a circuit And like I said I should be able to come out by that Pub called The Ship It'd be a nice town to come to And go for walks further out There's another footpath there Probably goes out into the fields around So I had no S map And it was a summer I might have planned a bit of a longer walk But today I'm just doing this So this is the Sam Load Flowing through Goes off round there So we'll see where that goes Never seen so many ducks And yes It has kind of become a bit of a duck pond But there's a lot of ducks All over there as well By those bungalows If we go over this little bridge here Looks like we've pretty much come to the very edge of the town So many ducks More ducks So yeah that probably will take me back to the town Let's just have a little look this way So as you can see now The river goes right out into the countryside So what I'm going to do I'm going to head back to another river here Yeah so I'm going to head back towards the town It's tempting to try and go for longer walk Anyway I better go and head back to the town Because trains are only every two hours So I've gone around Founds where the river comes back to the main street Not much to see on that side There's a huge bush So what I'm going to do now I'm going to head back to the railway station And it's time to go home So as I now head back to the station That's the war memorial And where the some disaster memorial is You can just see the church over there I've really enjoyed coming to visit Sam It's nice to see another place on the railway map And as I said it was a fairly easy one to do Because the railway was already here They didn't need to reopen the railway They just needed to reopen the station But as time goes on I hope we'll be visiting more new railway stations The most recent one I did was Battersea Power Station Extension of Northern Line That also included a new station at nine ounce You'll see that video I'll look at the link on screen now So that was the last one I did We have since had the new station at Oakhampton Oakham Which I did think about going down too But I had quite a lot of hours on So I think that would be one I'll probably do In 2022 But I really would like to go down there And do that bit of line And see the station Have a look around the town It's got a castle and everything So I've um But yeah that's it I've enjoyed exploring Sam It's always nice to come and see And have a little town I hope you enjoyed this video Thank you very much for watching Please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment Merry Christmas to all my viewers Happy new year Happy 2022 And as I said at the very beginning Thank you very much for getting me to 4,000 subscribers You know keep sharing Keep liking, commenting And you know sooner or later I'll be making one Saying thank you very much for 5,000 subscribers So thank you very much And from Sam as I head back to the station Goodbye