Great Whipsnade Railway Great Whipsnade Railway The Great Whipsnade Railway, also known as The Jumbo Express, is an English, narrow gauge heritage railway that operates within ZSL Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire, England. Construction of the railway started in 1970 and the initial line opened on 26 August 1970. The line provided rides within the animal enclosures and an additional attraction in its own right. Originally called the Whipsnade and Umfolozi Railway, it began as a short line running from near the children's zoo. It was later extended to form a loop through several paddocks. The railway is now over a mile in length.
Whipsnade Zoo 41 bombs fell on the park with little damage to the zoo structure; a 3-year-old giraffe named Boxer, which had been born at the zoo, was frightened to death by the explosions. Some of the ponds in the park are the remains of bomb craters from this period. In 1996, a new elephant house and paddock was opened to replace the architecturally outstanding but cramped original elephant house designed by Lubetkin and Tecton in 1935. The old house remains at the zoo as a Grade II* listed building and its associated enclosure contains the zoo's lemurs. In the early 2000s