2017 Railway News

8th January 2017

First track days of the year with the permanent way around The Dam station receiving attention. Some panels were completely lifted and the ballast dug out (largely as it was sinking into the mud) and elsewhere it was sleeper replacement and levelling of the track.

30th January 2017

Work continues on replacement of the engine shed (separate page to follow soon showing the progress). However at the same time, the ongoing winter track programme continues apace with the loop at Lakeside receiving attention to remove a very sharp curve and also to replace the points. The points used are from the Isle of Mull railway and so Sunday marked the first time a Mull locomotive had been on Mull rails since 2012 - hopefully much more scenes like this will be repeated in the coming years.

20th February 2017

The Engine Shed is progressing smoothly so work on the railway continues on track improvements. With Lakeside Loop now complete work has shifted to Hunthouse Wood with a programme of track relaying along the whole station site. Work is progressing according to schedule despite some uninvited guests taking a look this weekend - we are happy to say so they were all returned to their fieldno worse for their outing along the railway.

9th March 2017

The Engine Shed is progressing to plan so now we have published our 2017 running days, timetable and special events - see the timetable page for more information.

9th April 2017

Engine Shed construction work is still ongoing with attention now turning to relaying the track in an around the shed. Work will be ongoing every day during April to get us ready for our May reopening. If you come down to see us please note there are no trains running and the site still has large construction equipment operating so please stay behind the fences for now!

8th May 2017

Engine Shed construction work is now complete and the railway has reopened. Our official opening on the 1st May was well attended and we had record numbers of visitors; many thanks to all that came. We are now straight back into our Friday-Saturday-Sunday running season and we will continue with the other small shed related projects during the week.22nd June 2017The railway has installed a new weather station that you can access to get both real-time weather data direct from the station, but also customised forecasts for the immediate area. The weather station is IHORTON4 on Weather Underground.

18th August 2017

The railway took delivery of its 2 new ballast wagons. These were made by Joe Nemeth Engineering in Bristol and are inspired by similar rolling stock seen on South African Railways. They are extremely large and made with very heavy duty bogies that should stand the rigours of our ballast loads over the winter. They will be on show during the upcoming steam gala if you want a closer look.

6th November 2017

The Halloween Specials were a great sucess, with a lot of effort put in by everyone to make the stations look suitably atmospheric and also to provide plenty of scares on the evening trains. We will make 2018 even better and hope you can join us. Our final main event of the year were the fireworks trains which ran without a hitch. The display at Rudyard Lake was suitably spectacular. Thats it now until our new years specials so thanks to everyone for a great 2017 running. Look out for more news of developments for 2018.