Ballast laying pushes on to within sight of the Great Central Railway!

Wow - what a weekend!

Mountsorrel Railway volunteers have staged a massive three day ballast laying push, which saw the head of ballast extend from its previous position some 1,010 metres from the junction with the Great Central Railway (GCR), to within 330m of the junction! In all 680m of ballast were laid over the three days, meaning that 970m of the trackbed is now ballasted and ready to have track laid.


(many more photos here)

This is a phenomenal achievement, which took a tremendous amount of preparation and planning prior to the event - coupled with the dedication and so much hard work by our team of volunteers over the three day stint.

The ballast laying was only possible through the very kind donation of plant equipment and operators by J. McCann (Nottingham) Ltd, and Lafarge Aggregates Mountsorrel Quarry who very kindly donated the ballast. We are immensely grateful to both John McCann and Lafarge Aggregates for their very kind support of the project.

Our attention is now turning to the completion of the last 330m to join up with the GCR. If you, or the company you work for, might be interested in sponsoring the project by providing plant equipment to help with all or part of this task, then please contact project leader Steve Cramp. Funds are urgently needed to allow us to complete the ballast laying and reach the GCR so that track laying can commence. Please see our donations form for details of how to donate and support the project.

Pete Waterman visits the Mountsorrel Railway

Last Saturday music industry legend and TV personality Pete Waterman visited the Mountsorrel Railway. Pete has a keen interest in heritage railways and had heard about the project and the work we are doing with children.

His visit coincided with the final school party history/ecology session for this term, which consisted of children and parents from Mountsorrel Primary School. In all we have run 13 visits for local schools and groups over the last two months. 328 local children have been able to visit the trackbed to learn about their local history and ecology. Check out the photo section of the website for photos of the various visits.



Pete was very impressed with what he saw and spent over an hour with us talking to the children and project volunteers. He asked to be kept informed as the project progresses and develops, so hopefully we will see him back with us again in the future. We are very grateful to Pete for taking the time out of his busy schedule to come and see us.

Pete posted the following on his personal blog:

On Saturday, I popped down to see the Mountsorrel project which is a branch of the Great Central - a great idea and very different approach. I think it’s a first and you should all try to see it. The team is made up of ecologists and environmentalists as part of the team and it shows. The local schools are all involved with re planting the wild flowers and there are youngsters all over the place getting very excited by it . The ballast was donated and delivered by Lafarge from their Mountsorrel quarry, which is a great example of a company really working with their community.

If you'd like to offer your support to the project too, please consider volunteering or donating to the project.

STOP PRESS: Are you free from 8am tomorrow (Friday 9 July) or Saturday? Volunteers urgently needed for surveying the trackbed. No experience necessary. Please e-mail Steve Cramp or phone him on 0116 230 1374. Thanks.