The Bluebell Rolls Again

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.

It was enough to bring all the local sentimentalists out of the woods in full cry against unfeeling bureaucrats. The sentimentalists discovered a clause in Parliament's original authorizing law requiring the Bluebell line to operate not fewer than four trains a day, and it took another three years, with the line losing $160,000 a year, for the Transport Ministry to find a way around the law and stop service. Workmen were already ripping up the tracks when Britain's antique-railroad buffs founded the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society and asked to buy the surviving 4 1/2 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-c- ) a week.

The Midnight Choo Choo. Bluebell fans happily set about repainting the gingerbread Victorian station in its original hues of chocolate brown and yellow, with no intention of stopping there. Wives and children helped clear the track of weeds, and retired railroad men nostalgically offered their services free if locomotives and rolling stock could be found. To raise cash. 1,350 memberships in the society were sold at 1 guinea ($2.94) a year. Impressed at last, the ministry agreed to rent the society the Bluebell's trackage for $6,300 a year.

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 blowing, triumphantly back to the station.

The Best from Everywhere. For the rest of the summer the Bluebell will run three times a day on weekends (47-c- a round trip first class, 35-c- second). Between its fares and the contributions of buffs from Nairobi to New York, the Bluebell Society expects to "preserve puffers for posterity." And with Britain alone scuttling an average of four steam locomotives a day, says Captain Peter Manistry, R.N. (ret.), a charter Bluebell member, "we can select the best steams from everywhere. Why, we'll be unique."

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