FAMILIES feel they have been plunged back into the Victorian era as clouds of choking smoke from steam trains on a restored railway descend on their gardens over weekends.

In May the Epping to Ongar railway line opened to the public for the first time in nearly two decades after years of restoration work.

A fleet of classic steam and diesel trains started shuttling customers along the picturesque route on weekends and bank holidays.

But families living in houses near the station in Ongar High Street say that their weekends have been ruined by clouds of black coal smoke from the trains’ engines since the line reopened.

Hazel Simmons, 49, lives in Bowes Drive, Ongar, with her husband and two children.

She said: “This is 2012, but it is like living in the Victorian era again.

“You hear a great whooshing sound as the engines start up and these huge plumes of black smoke descend.

“The engines spew out the smoke everywhere. It is like a cloud is coming over you. The trains are only about 50 feet from my back door. At is all day when the service is running, from 9am to 5pm.

“It is terrible, you can’t hang your washing out, you can’t go into the garden, you have to keep the doors tightly shut.

“It is ridiculous that in this day and age you can’t smoke in a public building and can’t inside the carriages of the trains on the line yet they can inflict all of this filthy smoke on us.

“We raised our fears that this might happen with the railway just before it opened but they just ignored us.”

Simon Hanney, of the Epping Ongar Railway, said: “We are really sorry to hear that some residents have a problem with the railway.

“We have always had an open door for people who live here and they are more than welcome to come and see the railway and discuss the issue with me.”