2012 Railway News

The steam gala on 22 &23rd of September was a great success with 7 engines in use.

A new 12 seat enclosed coach has been ordered from LTM Engineering and was delivered on 5th of December ready for santa trains.

The former railway on Mull was sold with steam engine Victoria, Diesel Frances, 13 coaches and a mile and a half of track. Victoria is currently at Rudyard and is in working order. It was in steam again on Saturday/Sunday 22/23 September 2012 at the Steam Gala. There were 7 engines in steam at the gala.

A new store for the cafe and children’s parties has been added to the end of Platform 2. With new double gates it makes the station more secure and weatherproof. Its now in place and has been painted.

Merlin has had a boiler overhaul, chassis checked and a complete repaint in a brighter blue. It passed its boiler inspection on 31st May and is back in service.

Saturday services started on the 24th March and the Platform 2 cafe also is now open at weekends and bank holidays 10.30 to 4pm. All the engines are now in use.

Merlin is now coming back together with the boiler back on and the work of repainting in a brighter blue was finshed in May. Two new bogies have been delivered by LTM Engineering Ltd and have been fitted to existing coaches to allow their bogies to have brakes added.

We are providing testing facilities for the Institute on Mechanical Engineers railway challenge to build and operate a new locomotive. A picture can be found on our Facebook page.

We have added yet more lights and security after recent problems with vandals.

The railway has been desperately short of covered secure space since the arrival of Victoria. Therefore a new container has been acquired and placed in position at the back of the shed. The No. 2 track has been extended into it and lights added inside. It has an external side door so that the tools & plant can be easily be removed.The workshop is now empty of engines and is being tidied. The old scrap milling machine was removed and a new one will be added. Merlin is scheduled to have the boiler removed for attention and then a repaint into a brighter blue livery.

The old burger van was to be cleared next and then dismantled ready for a new proper toilet block to be added. The first step is to build a new store for all the cafe chairs etc. This is in now complete and three full skips of rubbish cleared so far.