We’ve just celebrated another holiday visit from third generation of our family visitors from Staffordshire. They keep coming back, we’re delighted that they share our love of the Forest, and at last we could introduce them to a Forest train journey.

When our visitors made their first visit to us in the Forest, the Lydney to Cinderford line had been decommissioned and passenger services had ceased many years earlier, but there were relics of old railway lines and even rail carriages on the lines overlooking the cricket field at Parkend. These were eventually removed, including the rails down as far as Whitecroft, and that seemed to be the end of over a century and a half of Forest rail traffic. My 3 kilometre circular run from Parkend would take me over the station bridge, up to St Pauls Church, along the forest path almost to Whitecroft, then scramble down to the abandoned rail track and so to the decommissioned station at Parkend.

There were some optimistic proposals that the Lydney to Cinderford line should be re-commissioned as a Forest visitor attraction. That was perhaps over-optimistic, but the Dean Forest Railway has successfully reinstalled the track from Lydney as far as Parkend, and this has become another Forest tourist attraction, with fare paying passengers on the line for the first time since 1929.

When our first family visitors came to the Forest, all this railway development was in the future. My late brother in law became a great supporter of Parkend cricket, coming on tour with the club and becoming a vice-president. Later, nephews and nieces would explore the forest, a wonderland for city dwellers, sometimes not sufficiently appreciated by us less recent foresters. There were Perrygrove trains, and Clearwell caves, but the Dean Forest Railway was apparently closed for ever. The ancient trains had been mothballed. Our young visitors enjoyed their visits to the Cannop ponds and the forestry area between Parkend and Moseley Green, which they called ‘Gladiator Hill’, free from the restrictions of urban life.

Now, many years later, our great-nephews have come to enjoy the magic of the forest, reviving happy memories of earlier times. But this time the railways have returned, and so there is a new way to travel around. With the great revival of railway travel, the visit to Parkend (now at the end of the line) where there is the opportunity to spend some time, and the shop, museum and café at Norchard, the forest remains an exciting venue for visitors (and residents).