Word: sheffield
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1960
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When Britain's 17-mile Sheffield Park Branch Railway opened back in 1882, the Sussex countryside" through which it ran was so thickly strewn with wildflowers that passengers had only to reach out the window to pick bouquets of bluebells and primroses. But over the years, despite the railway's much admired charm, modern highways with their rumbling trucks and beetling cars drained away its traffic. In 1955, struggling to cut the losses of Britain's nationalized railways, the Transport Ministry marked the "Bluebell and Primrose" for extinction...
...already ripping up the tracks when Britain's antique-railroad buffs founded the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society and asked to buy the surviving 4½ miles of trackage. To discourage them, the ministry named a stiff price: $90,000. In consolation, it offered to rent them the old Sheffield Park booking office for 5 shillings (70? ) a week...
Last week more than 2,000 Britons descended on Sheffield Park Station, many of the men in batwing collars and the women in high-button shoes and Victorian bonnets. To the strains of When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam', the Bluebell-consisting for the present of two freshly painted wooden coaches between a brace of antique steam engines -chuffed down the track at a sedate 25 m.p.h. Minutes later, reaching the end of the line, the volunteer engineer and fireman hopped out, hurried around to the rear engine, fired it up and brought the train, all whistles...
...rainy evening in 1881 a weary, bewildered girl of 17 stood in the middle of London's bustling King's Cross Station. A moment before she had stepped off the train from Sheffield, and now she wondered how in the world she would ever thread the maze of the vast city to the house where she had taken service as a nursemaid. Just then an elderly, well-dressed woman with a kindly face stepped up to her. "Can I help you, my dear?" she inquired. Off they went-but not to the right address. They went instead...