Welcome
The Ruislip Lido Railway is a 12 inch gauge railway operated entirely by volunteers. The line runs through the woodlands skirting the lake from Woody Bay Station beside the beach, all the way round to Ruislip Lido (Waters Edge) Station which is close to the car park. Here you can watch the loco being turned on the turntable ready for the return journey. The two and a half mile round trip takes about 35 minutes.
All our trains are wheelchair, pushchair and buggy friendly. The service is normally operated by one of our large diesel locomotives. On weekends and Bank Holidays, our steam locomotive 'Mad Bess', which is a half scale version of the Ffestiniog Railway locomotive 'Blanche', may pull the train.
Latest News (most recent at the top)
Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th May 2013
After the short notice cancellation of last weekend's service we are back running but due to the on-going lido improvement works affecting Ruislip Lido Station we can only run trains between Woody Bay Station and Haste Hill Station this weekend. Ruilsip Lido Station will remain closed all weekend and you will not be able to get on or off trains there.
It is a reasonable walk up the path to Haste Hill where you will be able to board a train to Woody Bay. Trains will depart as per the timetable from Woody Bay and at the following times from Haste Hill: 12.35, 13.15, 13.55, 14.35, 15.15, 15.55, 16.35 & 17.15. To find out where Haste Hill Station is please click here.
We are sorry we cannot provide the service over the full length of the line as advertised this weekend but we hope to be back to normal for next weekend.
We need YOUR help!
During 2013, we will be filming and producing a video about the railway, which will include a short bit about its history. The last time we made a video was about 11 years ago, so we wanted to show how the railway has developed since the first train ran in 1945.
To help tell the story as best we can in this section of the video, we are looking for old video footage of the Lido and the railway, prior to the 1990’s. We would love to try and track down footage which shows the original 1945 steam loco ‘Prince Edward’ in action, and general footage from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. Do you have any footage we could copy and include in the video? If so, please contact Matt by emailing marketing (a) ruisliplidorailway.org (replace (a) with @ ). We are happy to credit any used footage and also provide some complimentary tickets as a thank you in return.
Thank You and a Happy New Year
On behalf of the board of officers, directors and the rest of the volunteers at the railway, I would like to thank you all so much for your support during 2012. Without you, the railway would not be the success it is today. It’s been a busy and exciting past 12 months for the railway. At the start of the year, ‘Mad Bess’ was given a medium overhaul onsite and both ‘Bayhurst’ and ‘John Rennie’ were successfully converted from diesel hydraulics, to diesel mechanicals. ‘Robert’ has been given a new lease of life with changes to its gearbox/engine and ‘Graham Alexander’ is currently away at present having improvements made to its bogies. 2012 has seen us stage the popular ‘Easter Eggspress’ event back in April and in October, the Argosy Players and the RLR teamed up again to present the sell out Halloween train ride ‘Quarantine’. June saw ‘Robert’ go on an adventure to Croxley Green where it was shown off to over 10,000 people and in the summer, we held an Open Day where we opened up the sheds to the public. More recently, Santa visited the Lido for our ‘Santa Shuttles’ and greeted every single passenger. Thanks to our team of dedicated volunteers, trains have been able to run all year round and we’ve been able to run multiple trains at the same time to cope with the high demand during the summer months. And finally, one of the most major and biggest projects currently underway is the redevelopment of Ruislip Lido. In November, we permanently moved out of the ‘Railway Room’ to allow the Council to replace the old building with a much better one. 2013 will bring a new lease of life for our ticket offices, shop and café when the Ruislip Lido and Woody Bay Station buildings get replaced with newer and bigger buildings. As always, we will keep you up to date online with the progress.
2012 has been a great year for Britain’s longest 12 inch railway. But as we approach the end of this year, we are already looking deep into 2013 to make that an even better year and to improve this important little railway. So once again, thank you for visiting and supporting us. We look forward to seeing you again in 2013! Trains finish running on the 2nd January 2013 and will start up again in February/March after our annual shutdown (see website for exact dates in due course). You can join us in 2013 too! We always welcome new members with open arms to help in all areas of the railway. Check out the 'Membership' page for details.
On behalf of everyone at the railway, have a very happy and safe new year.
Matthew Streeton, Marketing Manager
Come and see 'Robert' in Croxley
On Saturday 23rd June 2012, we will be taking our heritage locomotive 'Robert' on a trailer to the Croxley Green Revels. The event is on between 1:30pm and 5pm and it is free entry. Some of our members will be on hand to show you around the engine and answer questions, and we'll also be running a couple of games for your chance to win some prizes! So if you're looking for something to do this Saturday, pop along to Croxley. For more information on the event, please visit http://www.croxleyrevels.co.uk/index.html.
'John Rennie' Returns!
Our locomotive 'John Rennie' has returned to the railway after its rebuild from a hydraulic to a mechanical geared drive system. The engine has not been in passenger service for nearly 18 months as the old drive system was not right for the type of operation at the Lido. Specialist mechanical engineering firm ‘Alan Keef Ltd’ of Ross-on-Wye spent 5 months rebuilding the locomotive to a more robust design for us. Today (1st June 2012), the loco arrived back at Ruislip. It will run in passenger service Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd June and then will not go back into passenger service until mid July. So if you want to pop down and see the new look loco, this weekend will be the time to do it! Photos of its arrival will be posted on here in due course but some are already posted on our Facebook page here.
Easter Eggspress - Thank You
On behalf of all the volunteers from the Ruislip Lido Railway Society, I would like to thank all of those who came along to ride our Easter Eggspress trains. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed running it. Even with the appalling weather forecast for Easter Monday, all but two of the Eggspress trains departed completely full from Woody Bay. Photos will appear on the gallery here and our Facebook page very soon. If you have any photos (or indeed any feedback) from the event that you would like to share with us, please send them to advancebooking (a) ruisliplidorailway.org
Matthew Streeton, Marketing Manager
Ruislip Lido Railway in the local press
In this week's copy of the 'Uxbridge & West Drayton Gazette' (Feb 22nd issue), the Ruislip Lido Railway featured on a whole page. Reporter 'James Cracknell' visited the railway to find out about what goes on behind the scenes and to talk to our members. There isn't an online version but we do have the below photo of the article for you to read.
Follow us on Facebook & Twitter
The Ruislip Lido Railway is now on Facebook and Twitter! Stay in touch and keep in contact by clicking on the logos below to be directed to our Facebook and Twitter pages:
