‘Mangapps – The First Thirty Years’, by John Jolly, 6th June 2023
6th June 2023 Meeting
We welcomed Mangapps Railway Museum owner and curator John Jolly for a very interesting talk all about this wonderful venue near Burnham-on-Crouch.
John was a farmer and owned land here on Mangapps Farm and having some small pieces of railwayana, the collection began to grow, and he decided to do something about it and gradually over time has built up a very good collection. The museum has a wide variety of items from East Anglia and particularly from the Great Eastern Railway, its predecessors and successors, and interesting displays on rail freight and railway publicity material such as a display of posters from the 1920s to the 1950s advertising the delights of Southend on Sea!
The range of the museum can be judged from the earliest items, a section of plate rail of 1798 and a boundary post of the Stockton and Darlington Railway of 1825, to the latest (so far) the plastic ‘Network South-East’ name board from Wickford signal box. A recent addition is the collection of railway memorabilia from France and Canada.
He also has the only American Caboose in the country.
To operate the standard gauge line the Railway has 18 steam and diesel locomotives and over 80 carriages and wagons, some of considerable historic and technical interest and operates along a short line with a footpath running alongside.
John just talked for 2 ½ hours with a refreshment stop and is just so full of information that left every one of the 29 attendees wanting more.
Rob Davidson, Branch Secretary