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.
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