Blue Bell

The Bluebell Railway is one of Britain's pioneering preserved steam lines, running for eleven miles through the rolling Sussex countryside between Sheffield Park in the south and East Grinstead in the north, with intermediate stations at Horsted Keynes and Kingscote. When it reopened a stretch of the old Lewes and East Grinstead Railway in 1960, it became the first standard-gauge passenger heritage railway in the world to operate with steam locomotives.

Each of the line's stations has been restored to a different period of British railway history, from the late Victorian elegance of Sheffield Park to the Southern Railway look of Horsted Keynes and the BR era at East Grinstead. The railway owns one of the largest collections of pre-1939 steam locomotives in the country, and operates a year-round programme of services, dining trains and themed events including wartime weekends, Santa specials and 1940s galas.

The line takes its name from the carpets of bluebells that fill the lineside woods each spring. Sheffield Park station, the southern terminus, sits opposite the National Trust's Sheffield Park Garden, while East Grinstead provides a direct connection with the main line to London Victoria, making the Bluebell easy to reach by public transport.