Poppleton

The Poppleton Community Railway Nursery near York is a fascinatingly eccentric little garden centre, which happily combines two of our interests; gardening and railways.  Formerly run by British Rail to supply plants and flowers to their stations around the north-east, the site was taken over by a contracting company after the railways were privatised, then it was abandoned, and now it has been taken over and re-opened by a community group.

Myself (Ben) and Younger Child visited back before the summer, then we returned en-masse in early September with the full fam for one of their open Saturdays.  By annoying coincidence the weather was identical on both outings; wet and miserable.  Still, it didn't dampen the enthusiasm of the people running the place, or ours when visiting.

Uniquely, the site is threaded by a narrow gauge railway line, which was installed at the behest of a former manager in British Rail days, using redundant track and equipment from York.  Plants and equipment are moved between the greenhouses on flat wagons, and then there are the more unique features like the wagon used as a planter, above.  Knowing where there is a derelict slate wagon high on a hillside in North Wales, this is something I fancy having a go at for our garden...

The line has two locomotives; "Loweco", formerly of the Abbey Light Railway in Leeds (one which we never managed to get around to visiting before it was unfortunately closed and dismantled), and a self-propelled wagon.

The driver kindly fired-up the "Loweco" for a demonstration run for us, having let the Younger Childs sit in the cab and have a chat with us about the line and the engine.  The locomotives don't normally operate on the open days because of how busy the site is, but we'd caught the place at a quiet point early on so the loco was run up and down part of the running line for our interest.

The loco is a Lister auto-truck, once a very common design of lightweight industrial locomotive; again, thoughts of a railway in the back garden, the only impracticality being our garden is only slightly longer than the loco and wagon in the above shot.  Still, if we ever won the lottery...

A simple return loop threads its way around the greenhouses, between the sheds and buildings, before returning to the main gate.  It is a fascinating combination from a modellers point of view, and thoughts of making something in a large-scale are already swirling around...

The site is adjacent to the mainline from York to Harrogate, which features what has to be one of the last hand-worked level crossings on the network; really surprising, given how busy the line is, though apparently (and depressingly) due for automation in the coming months.

All in all a fascinating place; lovely tea and cakes, nice crafty bits on sale too, and really friendly people running the show.  We bought a ton of plants for the garden on both occasions (incredibly good value too), and compared to the modern 'retail experience' mega garden centres, it is pleasantly eccentric and down-to-earth.  We'll definitely by going back again come springtime...