Mountsorrel Railway first ecology activity session is a tremendous success!

Saturday September 26th was the launch date for a new initiative by the Mountsorrel Railway Project aimed at giving local children and their parents the chance to learn about and experience ecology.



Mountsorrel resident and project volunteer Lesley Humphries organised a series of activities aimed at helping children to develop a better understanding of the environment and, on this occasion, insect wildlife in particular. Lesley said:

The trackbed and surrounding area of the old Mountsorrel Railway is a wonderful haven for wildlife. We want to open up the educational opportunities of this ecological resource in a controlled manner that allows children to learn in a hands on fashion. Children can learn so much from an opportunity like this. It's great to allow the parents to share in the experience as well!

The children spent several hours exploring the areas around the trackbed and were shown how insects thrive in certain locations and not others. The children were able to see many different types of creatures first hand. The children then constructed their own mini wildlife habitats which were placed along the trackbed at various locations.



Volunteer project leader Steve Cramp commented:

Lesley has worked hard over the last few weeks planning, researching and sourcing materials and it was great to see so many local families come along to take part. My sincere thanks go to Lesley for creating this learning opportunity.

As a direct result of the success of the first activity session, Lesley hopes to run a further ecology session at the end of October. The project makes no charge for these activities. If you would like to take part in future sessions please contact Lesley or see the project website for further details.

And don't forget there's an opportunity to join guided tours of the Mountsorrel Railway on the weekend of Saturday 10th October! See here for more information.

See the Mountsorrel Railway for yourself!

Come and see the Mountsorrel Railway project for yourself on the weekend of Saturday 10 October!

All day on both the Saturday and Sunday of that weekend, ticket holders to the Great Central Railway's Steam Gala will be able to take a free hourly shuttle bus for a one hour guided walking tour of the trackbed.

You'll be shown round by our volunteers, who'll talk about the history of the line, our work with schools and the local community, and show you what's being done to imminently bring back this industrial branch of the Great Central!

For more information about the Steam Gala click here and see the video below.



More details, including bus times, will be posted on this website nearer the time. If you have any questions about the event, or the project in general, please contact us. Hope to see you there!

Learn about ecology at the Mountsorrel Railway

Local volunteer Lesley Humphries will be running a special ecology session aimed at younger children and their parents on the afternoon of Saturday September 26th.

The session will start at 2:00pm and last around 90 minutes to 2 hours. The meeting area is on the grassy area near to the bench at the top of Halstead Road, at its junction with Swithland Lane/Wood Lane.

During the session the children will have the opportunity to construct their own mini wildlife habitat which will be carefully positioned alongside the trackbed. The children can then return to these in future sessions to see what creatures have taken up residence there.

Lesley will also be conducting a wildlife hunt aimed at helping the children to seek out and discover the wildlife that lives alongside the trackbed.

The session is open to the general public and not just those who are currently involved with the project. The Mountsorrel Railway will be making no charge for anyone taking part in these activities. We simply seek to give our local children, and their parents, the rare and unique opportunity to get hands on with nature!

Lesley is putting a tremendous amount of time and effort into putting together this activity, so we really hope that the public will come along to support her. For health and safety reasons, children must be accompanied by their parents or guardians. If the session is a success we hope to run further sessions in the future.

Lesley is collecting various items to help with this activity, so please can you bring along at least one of the following:

• Blocks of wood
• Empty plastic drinks bottles
• Magnifying glasses
• Insect collecting containers/kits that you might have

Please e-mail Lesley if you intend to come, so that we can make sure we have enough materials for everyone. We very much hope to see you there!

A very special thanks goes to Lesley for running this session!

Our first replica Mountsorrel Granite Company wagon now restored!

The restoration of our first replica Mountsorrel Granite Company wagon has now been completed!



Project volunteers have spent the last five months restoring the wagon. Restoring the wagon really has been a community initiative involving volunteers of all ages and we even have a group of five teenage girls from Mountsorrel giving up their time to volunteer on Tuesday evenings! We would like to thank all of our volunteers who have worked on the first wagon, some of whom have devoted many hours to recreate our heritage. Such as young Jamie and Lenny, who have worked on the wagon under the guidance of Dave almost every day throughout the school summer holidays!

The Mountsorrel Granite Company once had over 750 of these wagons at various times. Sadly none of the originals survive but we were able to track down similar wagons which in themselves are 50-60 years old. These are ideal for recreating Mountsorrel's industrial railway history!

The wagons will be used for historical recreations on the restored Mountsorrel Railway. Most notable of these recreations is our intention to recreate the Sunday School outings of the 1920s and 30s when local children would have rode in the wagons. We are working with Mountsorrel, Quorn and Rothley primary schools to allow todays' children to recapture those those scenes of yesteryear. If you would like your school to be involved in this recreation please contact Steve Cramp.

We are very grateful to East Midlands Airport for sponsoring the signwriting costs of the three wagons, and also to professional signwriter John Robinson for doing such a good job of applying the lettering.

We hope to start work on the second wagon within the next couple of weeks. If you would like to recreate a piece of history by volunteering to restore the second wagon then please contact Steve. Funds are still required for the remaining two wagons so if you would like to donate to support our work please download and fill in our donation form.

Mountsorrel Railway needs more volunteers - can you help?

More and more families are coming along to volunteer on the Mountsorrel Railway project. Volunteering with the project is a good way of spending family time together in a constructive environment. At the end of the day you can look back and see what you have managed to achieve, and go home with the satisfaction that you have done something to help a community project! The project helps to encourage children to be constructive and creative whilst getting exercise and most importantly away from the computer games and TV!



The Mountsorrel Railway project welcomes volunteers of all ages. Whether you come as a family, with a friend, or as an individual, you'll be made very welcome indeed. We have tasks for everyone regardless of age or gender.

More volunteers are needed as the project approaches it's most exciting phase yet and continues to grow and expand! If you would like to come along and help a local community project, then please get in touch with Steve Cramp.