The train now arriving … is in my back garden

A RAILWAY enthusiast has built a complete station in his back yard at a cost of half a million pounds with three railway carriages which he has turned into a restaurant.

Michael Attle spent five years creating the vintage station equipped with platform, signal box, 1920s station house and Pullman-style carriages.

Mr Attle, who has a landscaping business, came up with the idea after discovering stone he had acquired was to come from the platform of the disused Oakham station in Rutland.

Deciding the platform was too good to carve up, he moved it into his back yard, then added the station house, railway carriages and other fittings.

“The station celebrates the golden age of travel of the 1920s and 1930s,” said Alex Adomeit, manager of the new restaurant, named Carriages, in Fen Drayton, Cambs. “I think customers will be surprised by the attention to detail at the station. A lot of care has gone into sourcing the memorabilia, even down to the fire extinguishers. People love the atmosphere.”

One of the carriages is said to be the one that conveyed the body of Lord Mountbatten from Waterloo station to Romsey in 1979.

Michael Attle’s garden, where he has constructed a 1920s railway station, with restaurant carriages; the one to the left is named after Lord Mountbatten. Above right, Mr Attle (right) with Alex Adomeit, restaurant manager