Sheringham – The Age of Steam Mystery Cache
Sheringham – The Age of Steam
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(micro)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
A trip to Sheringham wouldn’t be complete without seeing the steam engines in action and the North Norfolk coast line in the background. The coordinates above are not for the final cache but for a bridge over the railway line close to the station. From here there are great views of the engines approaching and leaving the town.
Steam and diesel engines still run on a regular basis between Sheringham and Holt with two stops in-between at- Weybourne and Kelling Heath.
The line, which is just over 5 miles long, once formed part of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway. At Sheringham the line has now been reconnected to the National Rail network via an 'occasional use' level crossing.
A museum has been built at Holt to display artefacts from the Midland and Great Northern Railway. The station building at Holt was originally built at Stalham in 1883 and was moved, brick by brick in 2002, to be re-erected in its current location. The signal box at the station is over 100 years old and was restored on site. The full signalling system at Holt, with 14 signals as well as the box, was commissioned in 2009 - winning the HRA signalling award for that year. The box was formerly at Upper Portland Sidings in the East Midlands.
Work on rebuilding the line started in 1965, and on 4 June 1967, two steam locomotives were delivered. The operating company, was launched in 1965 following the granting of two Light Railway Orders. In May 1973, the railway was the scene of filming of the episode The Royal Train of the popular TV programme Dad's Army.
The main restoration sheds are at Weybourne. They have room to accommodate four standard length British Railways Mark 1 coaches and six large steam or diesel locomotives. New carriage storage sheds have been built near Holt and these have the capacity to store the equivalent of 18 Mark 1 coaches.
There is a variety of preserved steam and diesel locomotives and diesel multiple units, passenger coaches and goods wagons. Most of these are typical of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) branch lines in Norfolk. Some are owned by the railway itself but most are owned by various individuals or voluntary groups. The line is also regularly visited by locomotives based elsewhere. Some come for a day on a ‘rail tour’, others for a few days or weeks to take part in a special gala, but a few stay for many months and form part of the stock working scheduled trains.
It is the steam engines that are current stock or which have visited that will give you the answer to this puzzle cache. When steam engines were a regular sight across the country many men (and probably some women) of all ages would go off on train-spotting outings to collect the numbers of the engines they saw. These numbers are unique to each engine in much the same way as a number plate is to a car. The numbers have been ‘blacked-out’ on the engines above, but part of the number is given in the left hand corner of each engine. You need to fill in the missing numbers which are represented by a letter.
This information can easily be found with a bit of research!
The cache can be found a short drive away at N52 56.ABF E001 09.(D+E)CE
There is room for 3-4 cars to park at the final location.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Na nphgr natyr!
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures