Thirty-one plots of land to acquire; angry farmers, refusal of planning permission by just one vote; a Public Inquiry; the longest tunnel in preservation; safeguarding its interests on its promised site at East Grinstead; renovating a Grade II Listed 10-arch viaduct – and shifting 80,000 tonnes of East Grinstead town’s rubbish out of a deep cutting… 

This is how the members and volunteers of the famous Bluebell Railway in Sussex achieved their ambitious number one project to extend their five-mile line a further six miles to link up with the national rail network at East Grinstead – it was just going to take 43 years and £11.5m spent (in today’s money).