Wildlife Warriors Restore Dry Stone Walls

Many thanks to Charnwood Borough Council's Environment Officer Tim Adkin for coming along to show the Wildlife Warriors the ancient art of dry stone walling. On this occasion the Warriors group consisted of all age groups from the very young all the way through to those in their 70's.

 

 A great time was had by all and we were surprised to find just how addictive restoring a dry stone wall can be! Wildlife Warriors events normally come to a close at 3:30 but we still had people keen to lay "just one more stone" at 5pm.

Many thanks to Wildlife Warriors leader Caroline Bowler for organising such an interesting event.   

Boys Brigade Study Archaeology at the Mountsorrel Railway

Mountsorrel Boys Brigade visited the Mountsorrel Railway recently to study and learn about the archaeology of the railway and its surroundings.

They brought metal detectors with them and were able to find and unearth items of interest as well as examine some of the archaeological items discovered at the old Dob Hall ruins.


 

Thanks go to our volunteer archaeology expert Robert Turlington for leading this visit.

Wildlife Warriors Dry Stone Walling Demonstration Session

 

Saturday 8th June at 2:00pm is the next date for our very successful Wildlife Warriors ecology based activity sessions.

 

Charnwood Borough Council's Environment Officer Tim Adkin will be with us to show the ancient art of dry stone walling. Those attending the event will all be able to try their hand at restoring one of the dry stone walls that runs alongside the Nunckley Trail.

 

We have had a lot of interest for this event from adults as well as children, so we have decided to open up the event to people of all ages.

 

The Nunckley Trail is wheel chair friend and the dry stone walling area is directly alongside, so even if your disability would normally prevent you for trying out something like this, please come along and give it a go.

 

For H&S reasons children under the age of 14 must be accompanied by a parent/carer.

 

Mountsorrel Bond Lane to Ruddington and Beyond...

The Mountsorrel Railway is of course connected to the Great Central Railway. Now after many years of planning, the GCR has been able to make a start on reconnecting to the Great Central Railway Nottingham - crossing the Midland Main Line at Loughborough on the way. 

 

The GCR is entering a partnership with Network Rail to build a bridge over the Midland Main Line at Loughborough. Design work is underway and the new structure is expected to be in place by mid 2015.

 

When the project is complete it will create an 18 mile long main line railway with a connection to the national network at Loughborough. Who knows, in the future it may be possible to catch a train from Mountsorrel halt to eventually reach London St Pancreas and beyond!

 

For more information see www.gcrailway.co.uk/unify

Project Progress Update

Project volunteers have been hard at work both with various tasks on the track to bring it up to passenger train standards and also to complete the Nunckley Trail foot path that runs next to the line.

Young Ecology Group volunteers bring another bag of chippings for the Nunckley Trail

Despite track laying itself being completed in February, there is still much to do before passenger trains can run. The team have been shovelling ballast from the sleeper tops to allow them to dry out, adjusting track keys, correcting track alignment issues, installing check chairs to allow a third rail to be fitted on the tight curves either side of Swithland Lane. The check rail is important to help limit track wear that would otherwise occur on the tight curves.

Project volunteers fit check chairs to the tight curves on the Mountsorrel Railway.

Over the coming weeks we will be installing a buffer stop and a sand drag at the end of the line and preparing for a tamper to visit, which will line and pack the track.
 

The Nunckley Trail is fast approaching completion. The half mile long foot path that runs alongside the railway for some of it's length, will be open to the public on the days that the railway is operating.

A test passenger train with three BR mark 1 coaches passes alongside the Nunckley Trail.

The trail has been fenced from the railway thanks to a grant from Toyota at Derby which paid for the materials. The path surface has been covered with many hundreds of wheel barrows of wood chippings, which have been donated by various local tree surgery organisations.

Toyota of Derby have kindly sponsored 200m of fencing materials for the Nunckley Trail

The trail winds it's way through the woodland alongside the line taking in both ecological and historical areas of interest. Loughborough University have kindly sponsored the creation of 16 information boards which will be erected at points of interest alongside the trail nearer to completion.

The trail has a picnic area, rest benches and is wheelchair friendly. Sadly the first of our benches was stolen before it could be installed. The rest have been very securely fixed into the ground!
 

Project volunteer Carole Armour tries out the Nunckley Trail

Alongside the trail our Ecology Group volunteers hope to create a sensory area and we are working with Leicestershire County Council to create a wild flower meadow.

Volunteers working on the Nunckley Trail

With the help of Railway Vehicle Preservation volunteers based at the Great Central Railway, we are  restoring the original junction gate that used to mark the boundary between the Mountsorrel Railway and the Great Central Railway. Only the metal work from the original gate could be saved but great care has been taken to restore the new timbers to match the originals.

The 16 feet long restored junction gate that will soon span the branch line track at the junction with the GCR.

  

We still need new volunteers to help with either the completion of the railway or the ecology work we are doing. If you would like to get involved, even if only on an occasional basis, please send an email to the project leader Steve Cramp.

Steam Trains on the Mountsorrel Railway

April 27^th and 28^th saw demonstration steam trains run along the Mountsorrel Railway as part of a GCR gala for the first time.

Port of Par tank engines Alfred and Judy, on loan to the GCR from the Bodmin and Wenford Railway, spent the two days running trains along the line with the three restored Mountsorrel Granite Company wagons.

 As restoration of the line is not quite complete, trains only operated over the first ¼ of a mile to the farm track accommodation crossing. The steep 1:61 gradients on the branch line certainly put the little engines to the test as you can see on the Youtube film below!
 

Steam Trains to Run on the Mountsorrel Railway this Weekend!

On Saturday/ Sunday 27^th & 28^th April the Great Central Railway are running their Swithland Sidings gala. The event will show the full potential of the new signalling scheme at Swithland Sidings for the first time. They’ll be a special viewing area to allow GCR visitors to see all the action close up. See the GCR website for full details.

The event will also see steam trains running on the Mountsorrel Railway with the three Mountsorrel Granite Company wagons that were restored by local children three years ago. Demonstration freight trains will run from Swithland Sidings onto the branch line and continue as far as the farm track accommodation crossing, some 450m along the line. Several runs along the branch line will be made on both days of the event.     

Please note that on this occasion the branch line trains will be demonstration only and no passengers will be carried.

The Mountsorrel Railway Project display stand will be setup in the Swithland Sidings viewing area, so please come along to see us. Our volunteers will be on hand to answer questions about the project and we are also running our “Sponsor a check chair for £15” fund raising drive to raise the money required to buy the last 100 check chairs we need for the tight curves either side of Swithland Lane.

FREE Badger Watch Event This Weekend!

The Badger Watch evening is being run in conjunction with Charnwood Borough Council. Their Environment Officer will be leading the event as part of both CBC’s and the Mountsorrel Railway’s aim to increase public awareness and understanding of the wildlife around us.

The event is looking to be our most popular yet with 50 people having booked their places already! Space is limited and we need to have a good idea of numbers for H&S reasons, so if you would like to book your place please email Caroline wildlifewarriors@hotmail.co.uk

Recognition for Mountsorrel Railway "Young Volunteer of the Year"

A 14 year-old volunteer who helps with the Mountsorrel Railway project has been recognised as the Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire’s ‘Young Volunteer of the Year’. He received his award from Lady Gretton at a ‘Young Person of the Year 2013’ ceremony at County Hall on the 11^th April.

Daniel Bowler from Mountsorrel has volunteered with the project almost every week continuously over the last three years and is always there at the start of the session and stays till the very end and this is after getting up at 6.30 to do his paper round! He gets stuck in with whatever tasks are thrown at him and often goes home with his clothes, face and hands looking more like he has been down a coal mine than at a railway, a clear sign of a hard day’s graft!

Daniel now helps to develop sub-projects behind the scenes, as well as helping on the recognised volunteer sessions. Alongside the heavy, physical work involved with reinstating the railway, Daniel plays an important part in the Project’s “Wildlife Warriors” ecology initiative. Daniel designed the group’s logo and helps his mother Caroline run the Warrior sessions. Children can attend with an adult, with a different focus at each session, and Daniel helps to devise the tasks for each event. He spent his 2012 Easter holidays building over 30 wooden ‘insect-hotels’ to be used by the children at a Warriors’ event. His resourcefulness allowed him to obtain the material needed for these as a donation from a local timber yard's scrap bucket, thus saving the project money. He thrives on helping and bringing enjoyment to other people and his devotion to the group has so far allowed over 150 children to experience and learn about the wildlife around Mountsorrel.

In addition, Daniel has helped as a young leader at 1st Mountsorrel Cubs every Wednesday night and goes on camp with them, helping to cook and serve the meals and helping with activities. Not content with that, he also designed their web site and now looks after it, keeping it up to date. Furthermore, he is now a member of Thurmaston Scout Band and gets involved with events and activities at Humphrey Perkins School. Last year he was involved with the school garden, giving up his lunchtimes to work on growing vegetables which are used in the school kitchens. He loves all things technical and loves to be involved in school productions, designing the sound and lighting for shows.

It is difficult to calculate precisely how much time he has given to the Mountsorrel Railway Project but it is estimated that he has given not less than 250 hours of his own time in the last 12 months. Also, it is probably true to say that a similar figure could be attached to his volunteering for the project in each of the previous two years. And all of this is before his other volunteering commitments.

Further Ballast Laying

On April 8th to 10th the GCR kindly ballasted most of the newly laid track along the branch line.

GCR ballast train drops ballast at Nunckley Hill

This was possible thanks to a further donation of 400 tonnes of ballast courtesy of Lafarge Tarmac's Mountsorrel quarry.

The project would like to say a big thanks to both Lafarge and the GCR for their help and support. Only 200m of laid track remains to be ballasted and the line is fast approaching completion!



Class 37 loco hauls the ballast train around the Wood Lane curve.

A film of the ballast laying is available on our Youtube channel.