Amberley Museum, Rail Gala Weekend, 19th July 2025

Amberley Museum is an open-air industrial heritage museum at Amberley, near Arundel in West Sussex, England. The museum is owned and operated by Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre, a not-for-profit company and registered charity, and has the support of an active Friends organisation. The items in the Museums collection are held by The Amberley Museum Trust. The museum was founded in 1978 by the Southern Industrial History Centre Trust and has previously been known as the Amberley Working Museum, Amberley Chalk Pits Museum, and Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre. It is located within historic chalk quarries. Chalk was extracted and processed for lime on site for more than 100 years, and the museum still houses a number of its original lime kilns. In addition, holdings and exhibitions at the museum cover a diversity of industrial and local heritage collections, including narrow-gauge railways, local bus services, and a multitude of light and rural industrial subjects. We’re delighted to announce two visiting engines for the Amberley Museum 2025 Rail Gala! W.G. Bagnall 2133/1924 0-4-0ST ‘Woto’ Built in 1924, WOTO is a Bagnall saddle tank originally used at the BICC cable works in Kent on a 3’6″ gauge industrial railway. Named after the company’s founder and his son, the loco was later re-gauged to 2’0″ and restored for use at Apedale. Hunslet 3905/2008 0-4-0ST ‘Jennie’ A modern replica of the Kerr Stuart ‘Wren’ class, Jennie was built by Hunslet in 2008 using traditional methods. Originally named Howard, she was renamed after the owner’s wife and now operates at Amerton Railway. What can visitors see and do at this event? Ride on passenger trains, both steam and diesel, that will be running all day and ‘Peter’ the 1918 Bagnall Steam Locomotive will also be running for the weekend. There will also be several model rail exhibitors on site for visitors to enjoy.