Where trains once crossed

Antonia Windsor takes in the views along Jersey's Railway Walk

- Antonia Windsor

I SIT at a trellis table, tucking into plates of Padrón peppers, chipirones, and patatas bravas as my children dig in the golden dirt with a stick and the sun's rays, refracted through the branches of tall pine trees, create patterns that dance on the faces of passing walkers. The Spanish food, the rural setting, and the blazing sunshine create the illusion of being somewhere considerably more Mediterranean than the Off The Rails café, a wooden shack about halfway along Jersey's Railway Walk, a four-mile, off-road path that follows the route of an old railway line.

The first train ran from St Helier to Corbière on August 5, 1885, and riding the railway became one of the highlights of a sojourn to the island for the tourists that flocked here from the late-Victorian era- I have a photograph of my paternal grandparents laughing in a carriage as they journeyed along the coast during one of their many holidays. My grandmother's cloche hat dates the picture to the 1930s, probably just before the railway closed in 1936.

During the Second World War, the German occupying forces briefly resurrected the railway and extended it east to Grouville and north to Ronez quarry, so that they could easily transport the sand and stone they needed to build their fortifications. Some of these German remains are still visible, including an embankment at what was Pont Marquet Station, about half a mile from Don Bridge.