Blenheim Park Railway Blenheim Park Railway Blenheim Park Railway is a gauge miniature railway operating in the grounds of Blenheim Palace, in Oxfordshire, England. The railway opened in 1975 as a tourist attraction within 'The Pleasure Gardens', an area of visitor facilities inside the grounds of the Palace, but some distance from the house itself. Miniature railway operating company 'Pleasurerail' operated the service on a short out-and-back line. There were no passing loops or run-round loops, so the line was push-pull operated. The original locomotive was named "Sir Winston Churchill" (not to be confused with the current locomotive of the same name), and
Blenheim Palace which had been given by the city of Brussels to the 1st Duke in 1704, was also sold, and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. These sums of money, vast by the standards of the day, failed to cover the debts, and the maintenance of the great palace remained beyond the Marlboroughs' resources. These had always been small in relation to their ducal rank and the size of their house. The British agricultural depression which started in the 1870s added to the family's problems. When the 9th Duke inherited in 1892, the land was