September 2011 project update

Volunteers have been busy in recent weeks working at several locations along the railway.

At Bond Lane our volunteer bridge team have completed the rebuilding of the end bridge wall. This wall had collapsed and had to be entirely rebuilt using the original stones. Unfortunately some of the stones were stolen meaning that the original capping stones for the top row were lost. Replacements were kindly provided by Mountsorrel quarry.


Work has since moved on to completing the repointing of the south parapet wall. This is almost complete and should be finished this coming Saturday. The restored bridge looks fantastic and our volunteer stonemasons have done a brilliant job.



Focus will then turn to the north side wall, which has a challenging area to repair near to its western end, before the rest of the wall is repointed. On October 8th a team of volunteer students will be visiting from Loughborough University to help with this work.



Community volunteers have also started the long job of laying some of the hedgerows alongside the railway. This is a very skilled task and we are fortunate to have a professional tree surgeon volunteering his time to help lead the work. 50 years of neglect have left the hedgerows weak and in poor condition in places. Laying the hedges will help them to recover and fill out again.






Our Tuesday group have been in action lifting and packing the newly laid track. This is in order to bring it up to operational standard so that it is available for the GCR to run historical recreations at upcoming galas.


At Wood Lane a soft area in the trackbed has been dug out and new material added to firm up the foundation. New drainage is also being added at this location. We hope to be able to ballast through the Wood Lane bridge before winter sets in.



We have volunteer sessions each Tuesday from 10am until 2pm and on Saturdays from 9am until 2pm. If you would like to volunteer, even if only every now and again, you can be sure of a warm welcome. We have families as well as individuals who give their time to help out. If you would like to learn some new skills, make some new friends and do something good to help our community, please get in touch with project leader Steve Cramp: steve@mountsorrelrailway.org.uk

July project news

Track laying

Phase 1 track laying is now complete and the track slewed, lifted and packed ready to receive trains. The line is looking very good indeed.



The video below shows a freight train running onto the branch as part of the Great Central Railway's Quorn turntable project.



Our focus is now turning towards phase 2 track laying, which will see track laid for a further 450m along the branch. This will give almost half a mile of running line. Please see the details below about our fundraising appeal and help us to push on towards Mountsorrel.

Bond Lane bridge restoration

Our intrepid bridge restoration team has been working extremely hard on restoring the Bond Lane bridge. What a battle this has been though. Back in April we had some of the hand dressed original stones stolen, which our volunteers had restored ready for reconstruction. Since then we have had sand stolen from the site and in June we had two rows of newly laid stones smashed off the bridge and stolen.

We have been meeting almost weekly with the local police to discuss the problem. They suggested erecting a steel security fence. The cost of this though was beyond our means but thanks to the loan of fencing from Mountsorrel quarry we were able to secure the site. Sadly though this didn't last longer than four days before the fence itself was stolen!

The bridge restoration really has been a battle and at times soul destroying for the volunteers involved, especially our younger volunteers who struggle to understand why people would destroy the work they have done. Nevertheless, not to be beaten they have pushed on and the wall is very nearly finished. Work has progressed even further since the picture below was taken and the wall is now almost ready for the capping stones to be added to the top.



If you see any suspicious behaviour around the railway bridge at Bond Lane, please contact Leicestershire police on 0116 2222222.

Fundraising

A supporter has pledged a very kind and generous £6,000 donation to the project, providing that we can match it before the end of September! Our volunteers have been working very hard with fundraising initiatives to try to raise the matching £6,000 we need.

Many donations have been coming in from the public. Thank you very much indeed if you have already donated!

One of our volunteers Janet Preston ran a project fundraising garden party at the end of June, which raised a remarkable £600. On August 7th John and Jenny Hardy are having an "open shed" event to raise funds for the project. In their back garden stands what must be one of the largest garden sheds I have ever seen. It houses a collection of historical farm and industrial tools which John has collected over the last 30 years. An old Ferguson tractor is its centre piece, all carefully laid out in a way that puts most museums to shame.

John's shed is quite renowned locally and has featured on TV. He often hosts visits from engineering colleges. A flyer for John and Jenny's fundraising event is shown below. Please come along if you can and help support the project.



You can help us directly to raise the match funding we need by sending your donation cheque made payable to "DCRT" (David Clarke Railway Trust), with "Mountsorrel Railway" on the back, to 112 Balmoral Road, Mountsorrel, Loughborough, LE12 7EW. If you are a UK taxpayer please download a gift aid form and send it with your donation.

If we can match the £6,000 pledged we will have all the funds required for phase 2 track laying, so please help us not to miss out on this generous offer.

Bond Lane bridge restoration hit by stone theft

We are unhappy to report that our volunteer work to restore the Bond Lane bridge has been hampered because of the theft of some of the bridge stones. The bridge is at the end of the section of the Mountsorrel Railway being restored.

The end section of the bridge wall was collapsing (see previous news update). Volunteers had numbered and labelled key stones so they could be cleaned and replaced in their original positions as the wall was rebuilt. Our aim was to maintain the original appearance of the wall almost exactly how it would have been when originally constructed.

The wall was carefully disassembled with hammers and chisels, and each stone carefully cleaned, before being stored nearby ready for reconstruction to commence. What makes the stones so special is that they were all hand dressed at the quarry over a hundred years ago. Finding new hand dressed stone is very difficult today: you can only normally find rough blasted stone which is not in keeping with the original look of the bridge. So you can see it was imperative to preserve all of the original stones.

Despite being stored in what we hoped would be a safe location, we were extremely disappointed to find that a significant number of the stones had been stolen. This included almost half the carefully numbered stones, making it impossible to rebuild the wall exactly how it would have been. Our volunteers were devastated by this, which we believe was most likely carried out by one or more local people. When you give your time freely to try to bring a useful and beneficial resource to the local community it is disappointing to see your efforts undone in this way.

Fortunately we discovered the theft early, before all the stones were taken. The person appeared to be returning each evening to take more stones, so luckily we were able to move the stones away for safe storage at one of our volunteer's houses. Not an easy task in itself as there were almost five tonnes of stones to move!

Not all is lost. The rebuilding of the bridge wall is a priority while we try to find suitable stones to replace the ones that were taken. The remaining stones are being returned to site for each work party and then removed again at the end of the day. This extra handling and transportation is hindering the bridge volunteers, but it has to be done.



The photo shows the bridge wall under reconstruction. The temporary fence in front is to protect members of the public from the works, and will be removed when the wall is completed.

On a brighter note we would like to say a special thanks to project sponsors Languard Vegetation Management of Husbands Bosworth, who have been back with us again to weedkill the trackbed base. Weed control over a mile and a quarter of railway would be a mammoth task to undertake ourselves, so we are immensely grateful to Languard for providing this work at no cost to the project. We would also like to thank Lafarge Ready Mix for donating the concrete pour for the new Bond Lane bridge wall foundations. Their support represents a significant saving for the project.

If your company might be able to help the project in any way please get in touch with Steve Cramp. We are always in need of many items both large and small for tasks that involve plant or other machinery. We would very much like to hear from you if you think you can help. Thank you.

Mountsorrel Railway volunteers start restoration of Bond Lane bridge

Back in early 2009 we took on the restoration of the granite railway bridge at Wood Lane at the Mountsorrel end of the railway line. The bridge required sections of the parapet wall rebuilding and both road facing walls completely repointing. The distinct historical importance of the bridge made the restoration all the more difficult, with the need to reuse the original stones and to ensure that key stones all went back in exactly the right place.

The contractor quote for the work was just under £19,000, but our volunteers undertook the restoration ourselves, completing the work to a very high standard at a cost of only £120! This was made possible thanks to a donation from Mountsorrel Parish Council, Lafarge who supplied some of the materials, and several people who donated. The work took over 15 months to complete and many volunteers of all ages came from the community to help.

Last summer, vegetation clearance around the bridge at Bond Lane, at the end of the line, revealed the parapet walls to be in the same poor state of repair as the Wood Lane bridge we had just restored. It soon became clear we had another ambitious restoration on our hands! Our thanks go again to Mountsorrel Parish Council for sharing our desire to preserve Mountsorrel's heritage and making a further donation for the cost of tools. We are also grateful to Lafarge who have kindly agreed to provide the materials needed for the restoration.



Exploratory work started last October with help from Loughborough University students.



Work got underway properly in January with over 20 local volunteers descending on the bridge with hammers and chisels to remove the old mortar ready for repointing. Remarkably this extraordinary number of volunteers enabled the entire south side of the bridge to be chiselled out in only one day!







Our volunteer stonemason has already made a start on the repointing and the bridge is starting to return to its former glory.





Our next task is to take down the collapsing end wall, so that new foundations can be dug before the wall is rebuilt using the original stones.



This is an example of how community volunteers were able to come together with local industry and the council to preserve our heritage. The "Big Society" in action!

If you'd like to come and help with this work we have volunteer sessions each Tuesday and Saturday. Please get in touch with Steve Cramp for more details.

70 volunteers attend the project's third anniversary work party!

The project's third anniversary was marked by a mammoth work party as we pushed forward with the many restoration tasks ahead of us. Our volunteer team was joined by 48 volunteers from Loughborough University making a record work party attendance of 70 volunteers!

This allowed us to undertake work in FIVE separate areas of the trackbed:



1. The restoration of the Bond Lane bridge was started.



2. A large group worked alongside our volunteers to tackle exploratory work on the trackbed drainage shafts near to Bond Lane.



3. Another group looked at ecology with a view to restarting the junior ecology sessions.





4. A fourth group were at work fencing our boundary near to Wood Lane.





5. The largest group, consisting of both students and our own volunteers, numbered 25 in total and tackled the annual line side clearance work near to the GCR junction.

It was fantastic to see the trackbed so alive with activity! The feedback from the students showed that they all thoroughly enjoyed the friendly atmosphere of the project and they were amazed by the progress made so far by our own volunteer team. Their help really showed just how much more can be achieved with a high number of volunteers. Our student volunteers allowed us to achieve five times as much as we would normally achieve in a single session and we would like to say a big thank you to both the students and Loughborough University for making the visit possible.

Loughborough University actively encourage their students to volunteer with local groups. Last year the university placed over 1,200 students with local community projects. The university sees voluntary work as an important personality and experience builder for their students. Volunteering says a lot about a person. Being willing to give your time freely to help others and the community around you is an important attribute when graduates are looking for work at the end of their degree. In the current limited job market employers are looking out for applicants that have that little extra. We are pleased to have been able to offer the students an interesting and enjoyable opportunity to volunteer.

Our hope now is that we can build a ongoing relationship with Loughborough University which will lead to regular help from their students.

If you would like to volunteer with the Mountsorrel Railway project please get in touch with Steve Cramp.

Mountsorrel Railway June news

Phase two ballast laying preparation underway

Hot on the heels of our recent track laying, we're pleased to announce that phase two trackbed preparation and ballast laying is now underway!



This work should see ballast laid over the final 600m of trackbed all the way to the end of the branch line at Bond Lane. We're very grateful to Lafarge Aggregates Mountsorrel Quarry community fund for supporting this work, which we hope will be completed in July.

Once complete the full length of the trackbed will be ballasted and awaiting track. Please see our track appeal for details of how to donate to help us secure the track we need to complete the project.

Wood Lane bridge restoration complete

15 months of hard work came to an end last Saturday with the completion of the restoration of the Mountsorrel Railway bridge at the top of Wood Lane! When we started there were some who questioned whether we had taken on a "bridge too far" with the challenge of restoring the bridge, let alone produce a finished result that did justice to such a significant and architecturally important part of our local heritage. We're pleased to say the restoration has been completed to a very high standard indeed. Both the original fabric and appearance of the bridge have been restored to its former glory.



Restoring the bridge involved the complete rebuilding of a section of the road side parapet wall using the original carefully restored stones, and the repointing of the road-facing sides of the structure. The work has only been possible thanks to over 30 of our volunteers who've given their time to work on the bridge restoration over the last 15 months. In particular we must thank our volunteer stonemasons who've overseen the restoration and helped to ensure completion of the work to such a high standard.

The entire restoration has been achieved at a cost of only a few hundred pounds, thanks to Lafarge Aggregates, Mountsorrel Parish Council and members of the public who have sponsored the restoration work. The restoration shows what the community, local business and the Parish Council can achieve when we work together to preserve our heritage for years to come.

Project hosts Scout, Guide and school visits

Last year the project ran a series of visits from local groups and schools, allowing over 300 local children to learn about their history and to help boost the ecosystem along the sides of the trackbed. Local children grew native wild flowers which they then planted alongside the route. A year on we're pleased to report that the planting was a great success. The difference between the planted sections and the sections left to run wild, which have filled with nettles and thistles, is clear to see.



Not only does the greater diversity of flora and fauna help the ecology of the trackbed to return to how it would have been during the original operating life of the railway, but it also helps to boost the ecosystem generally. Additional and varied wild flowers attract more insects, which helps pollinate the crops in nearby fields. The insects also provide food for birds and animals, further enriching the ecosystem.



This year's series of school and group visits will soon be underway, allowing even more of our local children to benefit and learn from the project. Thanks go to our ecology volunteers who work hard to create these educational opportunities for our children.

Happy Christmas from the Mountsorrel Railway

The project would like to thank our many volunteers, supporters and companies who have aided the project over the last year. We wish all our website readers a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Next year we should see track on the branch, and hopefully trains!

In the meantime, even this close to Christmas, two important aspects of the project have moved on considerably:

Wood Lane bridge east side repointing completed!

Project volunteers have been working throughout this past year to repair the Mountsorrel Railway bridge at the top of Wood Lane. The work has been extensive, as reported in previous updates. Recently volunteers have been repointing the parapet walls which has been a painstaking and time consuming task. We are pleased to report that the eastern parapet wall has now been completed!

This has been possible through a donation by Mountsorrel Parish Council towards the material costs for the work. We are very grateful to the Parish Council for their support for the project. We would also like to express our thanks to the many volunteers, mostly from our local community, who have given their time over the last year to help restore the bridge, the end result looks fantastic! We also thank Lafarge Aggregates and Stonehurst Family Farm who have supported work done earlier in the year on the bridge.


Photo courtesy Nigel Harris

In November the project received a donation of 350 daffodil bulbs from a Mountsorrel resident who expressed a wish that they be planted around the bridge faces, in the hope that next spring they would help to show off our restoration work to full effect. The project is very grateful for this donation and volunteers have planted the bulbs has requested.



Attention is now turning to the west side parapet wall which is also in urgent need of repointing and repair. The material cost for this side of the bridge is expected to be around £50. If you or your company would like to sponsor the repair of the west side of the bridge, please get in touch with Steve Cramp.

Work begins on the third and final replica Mountsorrel wagon

Hot on the heels of our first two restored wagons, volunteer restoration work has now started on the third and final replica Mountsorrel Granite Company wagon. Volunteers have already stripped the existing rotten timbers from the floor, prepared the steel work for painting, commenced painting of the frames and made a start on preparing the sides for painting. At present work is being undertaken primarily by our Tuesday evening volunteer team. Our Tuesday evening team of teenage girls has now increased to seven, one of whom is working on the wagon as part of her Duke of Edinburgh awards scheme.



Wagon work will pause over the Christmas break, but if you would like to get involved, either on Saturdays, or Tuesday evenings, please get in touch with Steve Cramp.

Thanks again for your support and have a happy Christmas.

Mountsorrel Parish Council sponsors the repointing of the Wood Lane bridge

Great care has been taken to restore the repaired sections of the Wood Lane railway bridge to its original appearance.

The remaining sections of the bridge are also in urgent need of work in the form of repointing to replace the original mortar that has eroded away over time. Although the material costs of repointing the bridge are not that great, it is a very time consuming and skilled task therefore employing contractors would be be beyond the financial means of the project. However, without undertaking this work the bridge would deteriorate very quickly indeed.

Our volunteer stonemason has kindly agreed to take on the task of repointing the road facing side of the bridge, supported by other members of our volunteer team. The total material costs are around £100.

Mountsorrel Parish Council has very kindly agreed to donate £50 towards these costs. We are grateful to them for supporting the project in this way.

The already repaired sections of the bridge give a good impression of what the completed works will look like.



The bridge is an important reminder of Mountsorrel's industrial past and we are delighted that the Parish Council is helping us to protect our heritage!

Phase two Wood Lane bridge wall repairs completed

The restoration of the bridge wall at Wood Lane by our project volunteers has now been completed. The final cornerstone, weighing in at around 250kg, was too heavy to lift into place by hand. We are pleased to say that Stonehurst Family Farm came to our assistance and offered to lift the final stone as a donation to the project. We are very proud of the completed restoration. All of the marked up stones fitted perfectly into their original positions ensuring that the wall retains it's original appearance.



Whilst we had lifting machinery on site the opportunity was taken to remove one of the large hand carved capping stones which had become slightly dislodged from its original position by ivy growing underneath it. The ivy was removed and the stone replaced all within a couple of minutes.



The restoration of the bridge would not have been possible without the donation of tools, materials and a new foundation concrete pour by Lafarge Aggregates. We are very grateful to Lafarge and Stonehurst Family Farm for their assistance in restoring the bridge.

Attention is now turning to phase three of the bridge restoration work which involves the removal of a small elder tree which was growing out of the top of the stonework. Again the stones have been numbered to ensure that they all go back in their original positions. We hope to complete the restoration of this part of the bridge over the next three weeks.

School and group visits continue!

We are now over half way through our program of school and group visits. Last Saturday we hosted a visit from pupils of Christ Church and St Peter's Primary school in Mountsorrel. Children, parents and teachers came along to take part in our ecology project to plant native wild flowers along the sides of the railway. The purpose of this is to encourage the wildlife of the trackbed to diversify and expand forming an haven for insects, small animals and birds.



The children also had a go at our history and ecology hunt that encourages them to look around them to discover the historical and ecological areas of interest along the railway.

The visit went very well indeed, so well in fact that a second visit has hastily been organised for later this month to allow more children from Christ Church and St. Peter's to expeience and learn from the Mountsorrel Railway!



We have so far received visits from St. Bartholomew's Primary School in Quorn, both the Monday and Tuesday Quorn Scout groups, Mountsorrel Boys Brigade, and Quorn Guides. Over the coming weeks, as well as a second visit from Mountsorrel primary school, we will also be hosting visits from Mountsorrel Guides, Mountsorrel Scouts and Woodhouse Eaves Scouts.



Humphrey Perkins High School at Barrow Upon Soar are also planning a series of visits in conjunction with Leicester University Archaeology department to allow pupils to undertake a detailed industrial archaeological study of key areas of historical interest along the trackbed.



The Mountsorrel Railway project is making no charge to the schools, groups or universities taking part.

Mountsorrel Charities Fayre

Despite the rain on the Saturday morning of June 6, we still had many visitors to our stand at the Mountsorrel Charities Fayre. Thank you for coming to see us and for your overwhelming support for the project! We gained several new volunteers throughout the morning and thanks to those of you that help us with information for the wagon restoration.

Mountsorrel wagon restoration continues

The restoration of the first of three historical wagons into the livery of the Mountsorrel Granite Company is progressing well. Work on the frames is now complete and volunteers are restoring the timber work of the wagon. We hope to have her ready for the signwriter to apply the final livery within a matter of weeks!

As ever, raising funds is an essential part of the project. Without money we simply won't be able to buy track or other related materials:

• to make a donation please click here to download a standing order form; or send a cheque, made out to "RVP Ltd" with "Mountsorrel Railway" written on the back, to 112 Balmoral Road, Mountsorrel, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE12 7EW, or e-mail George Overton

• to volunteer please e-mail Steve Cramp, project coordinator

Thank you.

PS the first ballast has just been laid on the trackbed! And a local MEP is visiting today to see the work which he has heard so many positive things about! More about these two key developments in a future update.

Project moves into its busiest period yet

The already relentless pace of the Mountsorrel Railway project is moving up into an even higher gear over the next few weeks. Last Tuesday we hosted a visit from the entire year five of St. Bartholomew's Primary School in Quorn. 57 children came with their teachers and volunteer parent helpers to experience and learn from the Mountsorrel Railway.



The children undertook activities involving metal detecting, archaeological investigation, wild flower planting and recording the history of the railway through sketching and report writing. The visit was a massive success with several children commenting that it was the best school trip they had ever been on! This is testament to the hard work put in by the school and our volunteers to plan the visit to ensure that the children got as much out of it as possible.

In all the children discovered two wheelbarrows full of metal artefacts from the railway which they have taken back to school for further study.



This was the first of 11 visits we have planned with local schools and community groups over the summer term. In all just over 300 children will be able to experience and learn from the railway over the next few weeks. They will also be taking part in our ecology project to restore the sides of the formation to how they would have appeared during the original operating life of the railway. Each group or school has been allocated a section of trackbed to plant up wild flowers, which they have been growing in the classroom and at home. It's a great way to allow our younger generation to get involved with ecology and experience it in a natural surrounding.

Hot on the heals of this was a visit from the 2nd Quorn Scout Group on May 12th. The Scouts planted wild flowers in their adopted section of the trackbed and also had a go at an "ecology hunt" we have devised to encourage the children to look around them and discover the wildlife of the trackbed.



Last weekend we ran a very successful series of trackbed tours for visitors to the Great Central Railway'ss 40th anniversary gala. With most of our work away from publicly accessible locations, this was one of the first chances for people to see all the hard work that our volunteers are putting into the project. We hope to be able to repeat something similar in the future.



As well as the tours last weekend we also had multiple volunteer work parties beavering away on various aspects of the project. Work on restoring the bridge wall at Wood Lane is continuing steadily. This is quite a complex job to ensure that the predominate stones all fit back into their original places. Thanks to the volunteer help of a local builder with stonemasonry skills, the bridge is looking absolutely fantastic. Another few weeks should see it returned to its former glory! The bridge restoration would not be possible without the very kind donation of materials by Lafarge Aggregates and the donation of a concrete pour for the foundations by Lafarge Ready-mix.



Work was also progressing at Rothley carriage and wagon works to restore the first of three wagons into the livery of the Mountsorrel Granite Company. Restoration of the frames is continuing well and we will soon be working on the timbers. East Midlands Airport has kindly agreed to fund the sign writing costs for all three wagons. This is fantastic news, allowing us to employ a professional sign writer to ensure the livery is to a very high standard. We are very grateful to the airport for this donation.



Our ecology group was also at work clearing nettles ahead of the wild flower planting.

The project really is a hive of activity at the moment! The pace will not be letting up over the coming weeks with work on the bridge continuing, wagon restoration and our ongoing visits from schools and groups.

There couldn't be a better time to get involved with this vibrant and very active project. If you would like to volunteer please get in touch with Steve Cramp. If you'd like to donate, please download our standing order form or contact George Overton.