 Hello, thank you for joining me. You can see where I am and just if there's any confusion as to which Gillingham or Gillingham I'm in says Medway. So we're here. We are we're in Kent I think the other one is pronounced Gillingham the one in Dorset, and this is Gillingham Anyway, we're here today for an episode of Miniature Rally Britain We're going to go to the Strand Miniature Rally, which is down on the Medway estuary. I arrived now this that way goes towards London I arrived from that way from sitting ball because I took my car sitting born to have some work done on it So Larder's driven sitting board and I've come back towards London by train So usually if I was coming here I would have come from that direction. Anyway, I'm going to find my way out the station Let's go and find this railway So I'm now walking down to the railway the railway station there runs on there It's a depot just there now. We've gone up a bit of a slope and we've come to a railway bridge Yeah It goes over well A railway but you can't really see this railway. There is a railway down there. It's an old line to the docks It's currently a Moscow guy, understand? So Riding a train down there in some soon. If you look this way Again, you still can't see much more, but you can just see there's a signal box there on the main line So that would have controlled this junction for the line up to the dock So if you follow it right the way down eventually I think it might have gone down towards Chatham and Dockyard I'm going to continue that way by the way the town centre is in the other direction I'm going to continue that way to find the next way estuary and the strand miniature out This walk through urban Kent is now starting to leave behind the houses and we go out into this area Which seems to be a cross between a graveyard and the park There's a few random gravestones around but when you get down to the bottom It looks very much more like a part as a church just up there So I think this was probably once like the town's main cemetery. I'm going to continue on down When I get to the end of the park there should be a main road across the main road And then that's the park where the miniature railway is situated We're nearly there now. We're just walking through another housing estate But the walk is about to change quite drastically when we get to here This is the middle estuary Over there is the island grain, the island there that's the who salt marsh There is also a fort on the island about where my finger is Over there and there's also a power station, which is just out of focus But there is King's North power station over there So that's looking out if you continue down there to get to Thames estuary I can just make out the Isle of Sheppey in the background We're going to follow on along here. So like I say, that's Isle of Grain And this miniature railway is just round the corner We've had a little walk along the estuary. We're almost there So as I said, that's the Isle of Grain and everything over there Just out of shot round the corner is up in a castle and we're going there as a child But somewhere I didn't go as a child was here, the Strand This is known as the Strand Little Park and as you can see says you were here It says miniature railway, miniature railway goes around there And if you look here, here is the miniature railway There's a little station now. I can't see a train yet But I'm expecting there probably is one So let's have a look Now there's a slope here going up So let's have a look And I can see a train coming Actually I can see now as the sign says it exits So I think what you do is you queue up over there to get on And then you exit from here So what I'm going to do, I'm going to go around there get on the train As I had an enjoyable ride on the train, notice the station is called Strand Station I find that quite interesting because Aldrich station, the disused London Underground Station was closed in 1994, was originally called Strand before it was renamed Aldrich So anyone who likes tube stations, if you want to catch a, not a tube train If you want to catch a train from Strand Station you can down here in Jillingham This railway though has more this fair share of abandoned stations Because Strand Station, and funny enough Strand Station is its original name But we'll get to that later If we have a look on this map which we saw earlier, a couple of things come to mind There's a passing loop That passing loop isn't there as we would have seen when we're on the train I'm going to explain about that but I'm also going to explain about the railway's evolution So as we walk through here, as I say, that's Strand Station just there The railway comes along here, it's very windy today as you can see The wind's doing its best to rearrange my hair The railway line comes along here and it runs on this skewed level crossing across the path But look down there, there is a field in section That is a disused section of track, the old passing loop And to give it away even more, the set points are still there They're like sprung points So I think if a train was to run that way it could simply run onto the concrete But that's probably why they only go round clockwise So as for the railway itself, it has quite a long history I understand there's been references to there being a miniature railway here As long ago as the 1920s But this line dates back to around 1948 The council wanted a railway, it is still today owned by the council But I think it's possibly contracted out, I might be wrong If you know, tell me The council wanted a railway And they planned for a nine or nine and a half inch gauge railway What actually was built was a more common seven and a quarter inch gauge railway And the railway wasn't as long as it was This long straight here, this is part of the original railway And the train, as you can see it's come round the corner The line ended just around the corner, around there When it first opened, so it was an up and down Let's just have to think about it Nice friendly driver and passengers giving us a wave as they pass by Which is always nice, miniature railways are very friendly like that There's also a tunnel up there Which I think probably also acts as the railways storage shed at night I expect the loco goes in there because I've noticed there's a door on it So that is quite often a feature of miniature railways Tunnel by day, storage shed by night There's another level crossing up there Hence why the driver has to keep beeping the horn Now this is where things get interesting We're going to come to a disused station There's a few disused stations but they're not as easy to spot as you might imagine We get to the end of the tunnel just here That's the end of the tunnel This is the original station Here was the station and it was originally called Strand Station They opened it here If you got on the train you went along there around the corner and came back The railway later was extended to form a complete loop Now I understand when that happened The station was moved just around the corner Crossing at this level crossing here The station was moved just around the corner to here So there was a railway station here And then as I say it became a full circuit A passing loop was added I think the passing loop was added around maybe 1988 I think it was 1975 it became a full circle But when the pass loop was added I think that's when the current train arrived But it had Mardite carriages I believe that is a Mardite loco It's since had newer carriages And it had like an observation car at the end And they made it a bit western And they named the station for Apache Eventually though when the station was moved over there That station was originally called for Apache And then it's now become Strand again So it's quite complex as in the renaming Although there's only ever been two names of stations Strand and for Apache They've moved around the site a few times So the current Strand station was originally for Apache Now as for the passing loop The passing loop I understand was installed around the early 90s But then that was so they could run a two train service They used to have an HST I have travelled on the HST One half of it is at... Funding up I've travelled on it at two different railways Each half of different railways One half is now at the Brockwell apartment It's a railway in London If you want to see that video have a look at the English screen now You'll see the HST that used to run here at that railway The other half was at Beckinscott at one point I remember riding behind it down I'm not sure what's happened to it I understand also at one point the station was here Just a complicated thing So they keep moving it around It was in I think 2001 A section of track was damaged And they realised to do a quick mend They could take a section of track out The what was pretty much by then a redundant passing loop So a section of track was removed They then had a full circuit Again unfortunately it meant losing of the passing loop I think there would also have been a run round loop At the other end at one point So for a fairly short railway It's almost a bit like a Hornby train set You know it's just like it goes around in a circle It's had quite an interesting history And it's also as all minutes railways Are a very enjoyable addition to the area I do like the location Okay you can't see it There you go My camera does that's annoying But anyway it's a nice location Here on the Medway Estuary To have this little railway running around it There have been steam locos here in the past I understand I've seen some old pictures But they've disappeared If you want to know a lot of information The Narragage Railway Society Does a nice little book on this railway Which I was reading this morning That's where it gave me most of my information from So that is also worth getting So what I'm going to do now I'm thinking I'm going to do a bit of line sliding And I'm going to head out that way Out of the park and back to the main station I kind of came a bit of a long way Because I wanted to walk along the estuary I'm going to go back the short way But if you're going to come and visit this railway It's about a mile off those walks Let's just see the train a couple more times And it's back to Gillingham station A bit of line sliding and a walk back through Gillingham, we're back at the railway station What I'm going to do now I'm not sure why Carl's going to be quite ready I'm going to get a train Beyond Tittingbourne the other way It's going to be in a different video But I'm going to go to Fannett Parkway Because it's not the newest railway station in Britain It was the newest railway station in Britain For one day in an open-portway parking ride So by the time you watch this video I would have published a video on Fannett Parkway I'm going to catch a train So if you'd like to come and visit this railway You can get to it easily by train It's a little bit of a walk down to the Strand But it's quite a nice leisure park There was a fun fair and everything as well on Which I'm not so worried about There was a cafe, get an ice cream All those kind of nice things you couldn't do You could also If you came from London it had to be quicker To have gone out of that gate line there Just but I went out the main gate line Anyway, I'm going to wait for my train Thank you very much for watching Please do feel free to like, subscribe And comment from Gillingham station in Kent