 Hello thank you for joining me, today we're in Watford and it's another episode of Miniature Railway Britain and this time we're revisiting the Watford Miniature Railway in Casio Rail Park, now the reason we're revisiting it so soon is because they've got a visiting locomotive today, so more on that when we get to the railway, as you can see right now we're currently in a housing estate, this is Casio Rail Park Drive, now I did in the last video we came here by train and we walked through the park and I did tell you a bit about the estate, so we're gonna have a look at a bit more of the estate and as you can see Casio Rail Park Drive, so this is all built on part of the estate, the house would have been down there somewhere, I believe the house has been completely built on, but there's something else I more wanted to focus on in this video, not the busy road but that does come into it, I did mention there was once a grand gate house to Casio Rail Park and that gate house stood right here, now if you look at the park you can see where the brick paving is, that is an outline of where the gate stood, but unfortunately what happened, they have to be demolished when they built this section of the road, the original width of the road would have just been the width of the other carriageway, so when they widened the road the gates which were built in 1802 by James Watt when they remodeled the estate were demolished in 1970s, I think that's a real shame but here we have an outline showing you where one of the polygonal towers would have been and if we have a look down here it may not look like much but I believe these bricks here are bricks from the Casio Rail Park house, now if we have a look here that is the park where we're going to go into, there's a little bit of history here on the gates, if you look there you can see a painting of what they look like and that's what the house would look like and there's an old postcard of the gates, so that tower there would have been in the middle of where the road is, the one that there's a paved outline of is this tower here and there's a group out there today who would like to rebuild the gates which I think is a really nice idea so I assume they'll be set back from the original site, it's obviously the roads there, probably in this area here but I think that'd be really nice to once again walk through the gate into Casio Rail Park and be able to walk down the avenue as we're doing today to the miniature railway, if you have a look here there is a sign it tells you how far everything is, so miniature railway children's playground 14 minutes it says it's going to take, it's 130 meters so yeah about half a mile or so funny enough about the same length as the Watford miniature railway so hopefully at some point in the future we'll be walking through those gates and we'll stand and look behind us and see the back of the gates, I believe one of it would have been like a lodge where possibly a parkkeeper would have lived or possibly both of them and they were just the grand gates into the park, the estate was originally the home of the Earl's of Essex but unfortunately once the estate got sold off the council owned it, it became houses were built as we saw over there, there are other parts of the estate the stable survived but we'll perhaps do that another day because no doubt Casio Rail Park, the Watford miniature railway will have other visits in Loco so there's perfect another reason to come here again and see a bit more of Casio Rail Park itself because it's a fascinating park that was once country estate it's now Watford's main park even on a day like today when as you can see it's raining it's autumn and there's not many other people here but still has a really nice feeling and I'm you know I'm happy I'm here and not just at home watching telly so what's gonna happen now I'm gonna walk for the next half a mile or so down this avenue and we're gonna find a miniature railway we're gonna have a ride behind a steam locomotive which I should tell you about when we get there so we're now about halfway along the avenue from where the gates once stood to the miniature railway and I've spotted something quite interesting that I'd like to show you well firstly over there is the park's bandstand but this is something that perhaps wouldn't be very exciting but it's been made to look exciting over here is a shipping container now don't worry I haven't got a new interest in shipping containers but I do like this one because we get past this tree you see what they've done they've put some big pictures on it of the estate how it once looked so if we have a look here on the doors to the shipping container or the gates that say to the shipping container are the Casio Rail Park gates so you can see see it all much bigger now rather than looking at the small pictures on the interpretation brought back by the road so what happened is the one where they've put some paving would have been this side and then unfortunately the road now sweeps across like this here so that is why they were sadly demolished but you know I do hope the group who wishes to recreate them does recreate them and it really would be great to see them again maybe if they're successful with that they want another project I think a rebuild Casio Rail Park house but I think as nice as it would be I think that's probably a bit too ambitious but here we are we can actually see the house so it says dates back to 1546 remodeled in the 17th and 19th century and then unfortunately it was demolished in 1927 but look what a great grand Gothic house it was and if we have a look around here there's a couple of lesser known landmarks that once stood I believe that's the old Watermill which we did mention in the other video when we went down to the river and a canal perhaps one day we come here again because I said we will they'll always be visiting locos we'll have a look at that next time now this one I'm fine quite interesting and I don't know too much about it so if anyone watching would like to comment and help me a bit here it says it's the Swiss Cottage built as a summer house in 1820 for the early vestix which part of the picnic that will make sense demolished in 1940s so I agree with that pain's getting heavier but one thing I would like to know about as you drive into Casio Park where you go under the railroad like there is a wooden cottage it's always fascinating me one day I don't think I'm gonna walk through the rain today to go and see it but one day we'll go and have a look and if anyone knows you want to comment and tell me what that is I don't think it is this building but it's of a similar kind of look then you know please do comment and tell me but now I'm going to walk on down the avenue to the miniature railway and what's probably going to be quite a wet ride but you know still good fun I said I prefer to be doing this the out in the rain in a nice park than just sitting at home and not doing that so on we go down the avenue to the miniature railway so we just walked down the avenue from where the gates once stood and where hopefully they will stand again one day which is now coming down to the Watford miniature railway where we've come to see the visitors locomotive they have Ernest Henry Upton so although we were here fairly recently I did say certain miniature railways may be featured again if they extend or have garlers or if visiting loco comes along that's worth coming to see and that's exactly what we got here today so here's the railway station there's the train and sitting here in the platform is Ernest Henry Upton we've come back here especially to see she was built in 1937 originally called Sir A Montgomerie originally called Sir A Montgomerie built in 1937 she ran at Dudley Zoo and now she's been all over the place pretty much and she was eventually put into store so she and rebuilt in 2005 to the name of Ernest Henry Upton but they're not about to turn I'm not sure so yes called Ernest Henry Upton now and she's now based at the Eastley Lakeside Miniature Railway which is somewhere we're definitely going to feature at some point in the future not entirely sure when here she is we're going to have a little ride on her and it's great to see an engine this age still in steam at the Miniature Railway and just over there is another steam locomotive now even though she might she's also probably not the last to have her for haulage in 1996 so Ernest Henry Upton has two steam locomotives so when they come back from lunch I shall have my ride