Sussex day trips #4 - East Grinstead

 This is recommended by my landlady for its heritage buildings, however, what I found appealing is the steam train. I had one of my best trips in my previous stay and I was very excited to take steam engine train again. Bus ride from Crawley to East Grinstead is quick (about 30 mins) and I reached station before noon. I took multiple stop ticket while is bit more expensive than single trip which I later found out would have been better for this route. 

The station is not crowded despite being a weekend (and a sunny day too) and the train arrived with only a short wait.

The route have only 3 stops and I planned to alight on final stop and explore others on way back. The ride was picturesque going through the meadows filled with cute cottages and livestock grazing lazily on sunny afternoon.

After about an hour and half, we reached the final stop in the route. The station have a museum with replicas and information on railways as well as few ships.

The trains are prepared for their ne t trips and I ventured out of the station. There isn’t much around (maybe I didn’t go further enough), so I went for a long walk around the grounds not far from the station.

On my way back, I saw this interesting advertisement for Murder Mystery themed dinner party in luxury train which I was very tempted to attend, however it was scheduled after my departure from UK😔 (I did get to attend similar one later though 😁).

Few minutes left to the departure, I was allowed into engine compartment to see how the steam engine operates💃🏻💃🏻.

The walk in warm weather left me tiring and I almost thought of going straight back to starting station, but I caught the last but one ride which means I could stop at one more station and there are 2 options. Even though the next stop seemed more happening, I chose to skip it as I wanted to be close to starting point in case I miss the last ride.

The station I got off was extremely small and there is no way out - the road outside have no footpath. Thinking there is way next to tracks, I went back inside the station and walked on tiny path next to the tracks only to be stopped by the guard. He clarified that there is nothing in the station and I was in the middle of nowhere. Left with 45 minutes to kill, I walked back and forth the station and had tea on the tiny cafe (they only have tea and biscuits there 😅). I spent rest of time on video chat with my sisters who were quite envious that I was out and about whereas they were out of places to go 😂. 

By the time I took the last train back to town, it was past 5. I tried going around, however everything is loved by then. So took the next bus back to Crawley. This is the shortest of my day trips and despite the limited activities and slightly disappointed with last stop, I had a good time - one can never have a bad day in steam train💁🏻‍♀️.