Date/Time
Date(s) - Saturday, August 6, 2022
All Day
Location
Essex
Categories
This event has now closed.
Vintage bus rides, cream tea on a steam train, bouncy castle, games or just have a chat. Something for all the family no matter what age.
Bring your friends and family, for an informal family fun day. Do you have a car, bus, lorry or bike that others might appreciate and fancy taking it out for an airing? Bring it along, but most importantly bring yourself.
Assemble at the showground and once settled in and had that long-awaited cuppa and cake, the young at heart can burn off some energy on the bouncy castle. The more adventurous younger people can have a go on a quad bike* or play some games. The less adventurous are welcome to browse the Bus and Coach Museum and restoration workshops.
Vintage Coach and Bus trips will be running during the day through some local villages **.
When you are ready top up your tank! The lovely Lucy from the onsite tea rooms will have prepared for us one of her lovely ploughman’s lunches to enjoy.
Carmen are extremely grateful to Lodge Coaches for hosting us. Lodge Coaches is a working family bus and coach company run by 3rd generation family members Robert, Andrew and Chris. The family business was established in 1920 and has been trading 102 years. Their vintage fleet has been restored in house by Andrew and his team to an amazing standard and forms part of their working fleet. The heritage fleet is often seen on TV and films and is popular for weddings.
See if you can see what vehicle has been in Cart Marking and what year?
Once fed and watered, we will make our way over to the Epping and Ongar Railway. This preservation railway has also featured in many film and TV programmes. You can ride as many trains as you like but make sure that you don’t miss the Carmen Steam special. As we steam our way between North Weald and Epping we can enjoy our afternoon tea.
Don’t let the British weather put you off we have made preparations in case mother nature tries to put a dampener on things!
If you would like to attend and want to use public transport, let us know and we can sort connecting transport links.
Lodge Coaches is not far from Stansted Airport just 20 mins from junction 7a off the M11 through some charming Essex villages. J. W. Lodge & Sons, The Garage, High Easter, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 4QR
Epping and Ongar railway is just 20 to 25 mins from Lodge Coaches through more of Essex county roads and villages. The Epping Ongar Railway is a heritage railway in south-west Essex, England, run by a small number of paid staff and a team of volunteers. It was the final section of the Great Eastern Railway branch line, later the London Underground’s Central line from Loughton via Epping to Ongar, with intermediate stations at North Weald and Blake Hall. The line was closed by London Underground in 1994 and sold in 1998. It reopened between 2004 and 2007 as a preserved railway, offering a volunteer-run Class 117 DMU service between Ongar and Coopersale. A change of ownership in 2007 led to the line being closed for restoration to a heritage steam railway, which opened on 25 May 2012.
For those not wanting the day to end you are not far from an Essex pub.
Your day includes:-
Rides on the vintage bus
Entrance to the museum
All games and activities
Ploughman’s Lunch
Tea and Coffee
Ride on trains
Ride on vintage buses
Ride on steam train and your cream tea
Itinerary
From 10am Meet at Lodges Coaches
12noon Ploughman’s Lunch
2.30pm Very latest time to leave Lodges Coaches
15:00 Steam train ride with cream tea
4.30pm Return home, safely
For those of you who would like to spend more time at EOR and ride on some of their other trains then you are very welcome to make your way over at any time during the day.
Cost
Adult £40.00 per head
5 to 16 £20.00
Under 5 free
** Some of the vehicles in the museum are part of a working fleet and may be working on the day.
* Quad bikes size available are up to 4/5 years old and up to 10 years.