THANK YOU: On Monday 20th May 2024, 47 children from Marner Primary School visited the Kent & East Sussex Railway together with their teachers and supervisors. The children took part in an educational experience based around a World War II evacuation. They learnt about rationing and the impacts it had on the way people lived, they travelled on a steam-hauled train just as children from East London would have done when they were moved to the countryside, and they met real evacuees who shared their experiences. Feedback from the school has been very positive and we hope to expand this initiative for 2025.

This was only possible because people generously contributed to this JustGiving campaign. On behalf of the children, thank you so much.

Please see our gallery for more photographs of the event you enabled.

This campaign will remain open with all contributions going towards future school visits to the K&ESR.

------------

UPDATE: We are so astonished and grateful to have reached our initial target of £1,200 to fund the first visits within just a few hours of publicising this initiative. We have therefore raised the goal to £6,000 so that we can provide a fund to bring further groups of children from Tower Hamlets (or other pupils similarly excluded from enjoying a heritage railway) to K&ESR. Thank you for enabling us to increase our ambitions and to benefit more children.

------------

In 2022 The Terrier Trust CIO, in partnership with the Kent & East Sussex Railway and Global Learning London and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, transported our locomotive 'Poplar' to the Poplar depot of the Docklands Light Railway. During six days of school visits and a weekend of public opening over 1,000 people visited the locomotive.

Our partnership with schools in Tower Hamlets extended to creating a comprehensive learning package with the local primary schools, which is now available to schools nationwide with a supporting artefacts box available through Schools Library Services.

In 2024 we are extending the link by arranging for children from Tower Hamlets to attend an educational event at the Kent & East Sussex Railway where they will learn more about the history of railways and their importance to society, and will ride on a train hauled by a steam locomotive.

To make this happen we need to raise £1,200 to cover transport and the cost of the experience for the initial classes to visit.

Most of the children we met in 2022 had never seen a steam locomotive before. With your help we can enable them to see one operating and make some special memories.

If we exceed our campaign total the remaining funds will be spent to bring more children to the K&ESR at future dates.