Primary schoolchildren plant trees at the Mountsorrel Railway

Children from Mountsorrel Christ Church and St Peters Primary School have visited the Mountsorrel Railway with their parents to plant new trees and hedgerow bushes along the formation. The planting was done under the watchful eye of our ecology group leader Lesley Humphries.



The hedgerows along either side of the trackbed had suffered through 50 years of neglect. Although our volunteers have worked hard over the last two and a half years to restore and encourage the hedgerows, there is still a long way to go.


 
Lesley commented:

It was great to welcome children from our local primary school to help with this important ecology work, which builds upon the planting visits we ran with the school last summer. It was lovely to see the children enjoying themselves so much!

If your school or young peoples' group, such as Scouts, Guides, Cubs, Brownies, or Boys Brigade, would like to help with planting native flora and fauna alongside the Mountsorrel Railway, we will be running a repeat of last year's popular planting visits this coming June. Please contact Steve Cramp, volunteer project coordinator, as soon as possible if you would like your school or group to be involved.

LanGuard VM sponsors the Mountsorrel Railway project

LanGuard VM, a nationwide vegetation management and weed control business with a head office in Leicestershire, have very kindly offered to undertake a program of weed control along the Mountsorrel Railway trackbed.

Steve Cramp, volunteer project leader, said:

"We were concerned that the onset of Spring would bring with it a whole raft of unwanted weeds creeping through our mile long newly ballasted trackbed. As with any railway, it's imperative that the ballast is kept clear of weed growth to ensure that it drains well and the formation of the railway is protected. The cost for controlling the weeds over a mile of track bed is substantial and a significant overhead for a community volunteer project like ours. We were thrilled when LanGuard VM offered to keep the weeds at bay for us at no cost to the project and we really can't thank them enough!"

LanGuard VM Contracts Director Tony Marlow commented:

"We had heard about the Mountsorrel Railway project and its hopes of recreating part of our local history for today's generations to learn from and enjoy, but it was only when we saw for ourselves the phenomenal work that their group of community volunteers have done over the past two and a half years, we were only too happy to be able to support their endeavours and to offer our services."

The Mountsorrel Railway project aims to recreate part of our local history by rebuilding the Mountsorrel Railway both for historical purposes and to carry passengers as part of the Great Central Railway experience. Community volunteers have reconstructed the old trackbed and are now running a track appeal to raise the money required to lay track along the railway.

"We have just launched our track appeal with the aim of raising the £150,000 we need to complete the project." continued Steve "Our aim is to relay track in stages as donations come in. Local support has allowed us to source the first lengths of rail and track laying will start this coming May!"

If you would like to support the Mountsorrel Railway project's track appeal, please see full details on the project website www.mountsorrelrailway.org.uk.

Photos of wagons in action at recent GCR gala

See here for more.

Many thanks to Gareth Griffiths for taking these excellent photos.

More photos of the wagons from the gala are here (Rick Eborall) and here (Ian Loasby).

Final Mountsorrel wagon completed - all three to run at GCR gala!

The restoration of our three replica Mountsorrel Granite Company wagons is now complete. All three wagons have been marshalled together and they look truly fantastic!



The Great Central Railway will be including the wagons in a demonstration freight train at the 1960s gala this coming weekend (March 27th and 28th). It's great to see that even within only a few days of completion, the wagons are already satisfying the purpose of their restoration, which was to allow historical recreations. Once track laying on the Mountsorrel branch line gets under way (see our track appeal) this will open up an whole raft of historical and educational possibilities.



Come and see the wagons for yourself this coming weekend at the gala and be sure to visit our project stand on Rothley station (see map below). Our volunteers will be on hand to talk about the restoration and the wider project in general, and very attractive cardboard cut out models of the wagons will be on sale too!


View Route of Mountsorrel Railway in a larger map

Third and final replica Mountsorrel Granite Company wagon nearly finished

Volunteers have been hard at work in at times very cold conditions over the winter to complete the final Mountsorrel Granite Company wagon to be used on the Mountsorrel Railway project.



Many young people have become involved with the final wagon including our team of teenage girls from the local area who volunteer on Tuesday evenings. Some have worked on the wagon as part of their Duke of Edinburgh award. Loughborough University has sponsored the restoration of the third wagon because of the involvement of young people and the educational benefits the wagons will bring. Once track is laid on the branch (see our track appeal) we will be able to unlock the educational possibilities of the project further still!



We give our thanks not only to our volunteers, but also to East Midlands Airport and Loughborough University for sponsoring the wagon restoration work, professional coach builder and sign writer John Robinson who has applied the livery to the three wagons, members of the public who have donated towards the wagon restoration, Nick Tinsley for allowing us to use three of his wagons for the project, and Railway Vehicle Preservations and the Great Central Railway (GCR) for their support.



The livery should be completed by this coming weekend. We have something special planned for the livery of the final wagon, so be sure to check back soon for pictures of our completed work!



The GCR plans to run the three wagons together in a freight train at the forthcoming 1960s gala, which runs from March 25th to 28th. Our project display stand and volunteers will be on hand at Rothley station to talk about the project, so please come and see both us and the wagons!

Please support the track appeal - to complete the Mountsorrel Railway!

The Mountsorrel Railway project has come so far in such a short time. It has now reached a point where progress is only limited by a lack of money. Would you consider donating to the Mountsorrel Railway track appeal, so trains can run again from the Great Central Railway (GCR) towards Mountsorrel?



Since Steve Cramp and a large team of volunteers began work in 2007, most of the mile-long route between Swithland Sidings and Lafarge Quarry, disused since the 1950s, has been cleared and ballasted. Not only that but the bridge over the track has been repaired, three replica Mountsorrel wagons have been recreated, and over 300 children have taken part in activities with their schools and groups on the trackbed.

All this for only £4,500! (mostly the labour, machinery and ballast on the project has been donated by volunteers and local companies, for which we are extremely grateful)

Projects on the scale of the Mountsorrel Railway typically cost £1 million per mile of track to complete. We “only” need £150,000 to complete the project, which will cover buying, lifting, transporting and laying a mile of rail and 1,500 sleepers, and other items required to complete the railway.

Please see the Mountsorrel Railway track appeal donation form for more information about the appeal. You can help by donating whatever money you can afford, for example:

• You could sponsor one or more sleepers at £15 each
• You could sponsor one or more lengths of rail at £180 each
• You could setup a standing order donation to the appeal, which would help reopen the Mountsorrel Railway even sooner

Exclusive incentives are available too, depending on the value of your donation. For more information contact George Overton. Incentives include:

• a personal, extensive tour of the Mountsorrel Railway led by project leader Steve Cramp
• travel on a Travelling Post Office during a non stop mail exchange on the GCR (not normally available to the public)
• an invitation to ride on one of the first trains to travel on the recreated Mountsorrel Railway!

Your donation to the track appeal would help complete this unique and highly praised project. The GCR hopes to provide the chance for visitors to ride on the line, adding another aspect to the GCR: demonstrating how freight trains used to arrive in Swithland Yard from the quarry, their wagons ready for shunting, so the stone could be sent onwards by train across the country. There are important educational aspects to the project too. Rebuilding the branch provides an illustration not just of railway operation but rural life, and would be of enormous benefit to local schoolchildren.

Please support the Mountsorrel Railway track appeal and print off and complete the appeal form today. If you have any questions please contact George Overton. Thank you for your support.

Latest junior ecology session planned for Saturday February 13th

We're pleased to announce that Lesley Humphries' popular junior ecology sessions will be returning on Saturday February 13th. This time Lesley will be helping the children to construct bird feeders, which will be placed along the trackbed to help our feathered friends through the rigours of winter!

The session will run from 2:00pm until around 3:45pm and is aimed at children of all ages, although children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. The project makes no charge for attending these sessions.

The meeting point is on the grassy area on the corner of the Halstead Road/Swithland Lane/Wood Lane Road junction (at the tree symbol on the map below). If you would like further information please contact Lesley.


View Route of Mountsorrel Railway in a larger map

Note: this session was originally planned for Saturday 6th February but has been moved to 13th February.

See us at the Great Central Railway gala this weekend!

At the forthcoming Great Central Railway (GCR) winter steam gala this weekend, Mountsorrel Railway volunteers will be staffing a stand at Rothley station. Please come and see us!

We'll be there all day on Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 January should you like to find out more about the project. Look out for our banner! You'll be able to talk to the people involved, ask questions, see photos, and see a scale model of the proposed Bond Lane halt. On the Saturday you'll also be able to see restoration of the latest Mountsorrel Railway wagon taking place!

Additionally, if you visit us, you'll be in a prime spot to see the exciting line up of engines the GCR has arranged for the gala! And members of our sponsor charity Railway Vehicle Preservations will be on hand to show you round their latest restoration project in the Rothley carriage shed.

Rothley station is here:


View Route of Mountsorrel Railway in a larger map

For more about the gala, please see the video below:



We hope to see you there! For more information contact George Overton.

Loughborough University sponsors wagon restoration project!

Loughborough University has very kindly provided a £500 grant towards the restoration costs of the third replica Mountsorrel Granite Company wagon. We are very grateful for this support from the university in recognition of the educational opportunities offered by our fleet of historic wagons. Once track is laid on the Mountsorrel Railway, the project hopes to include the wagons in historical recreations on the rebuilt branch line. Some of these recreations involve educational projects with local primary schools, aimed at allowing our younger generation to experience and reenact scenes from a bygone age.

Our young volunteer wagon team has already been hard at work putting the grant to good use and the restoration of the wagon is well under way.



Volunteer Steve Cramp, who leads the project, comments "The public has been generous in their support for our historical wagon restoration project. This, coupled with a grant from East Midlands Airport for the signwriting costs, has allowed us to complete the first two wagons, but we were left with a funding gap to complete the third and final wagon. Loughborough University's very generous grant plugs that hole and allows us to complete the wagon restoration project and unlock the historical educational potential they hold. We hope to have the third wagon completed by the end of February".

For more information about the wagon restoration, or the wider Mountsorrel Railway project, please contact George Overton.

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.