Ready to Roll (almost)!

The Trustees are pleased to report that another important milestone for the railway has been achieved.  The NDR now has the required permissions to run passenger trains from the Office of Rail and Road and our status has been added to the ORR website as a heritage railway.  This now enables us to run trains between the extended track and embankment at Cattle Creep, over Lamb House Bridge to the station and, if we are able to extend to Holloway Lane, to Holloway Lane itself.  A big thanks to our Operations Manager, who has led the work to ensure that not only have we received this permission but also the embankment, bridge and track are ready for us to run passenger trains on.  

We are optimistic that we will be using our brake van for some passenger services later in the year but with a lot of competing work at the station to undertake it will probably be next year before we start opening to the public on a regular basis.  

After a lot of work behind the scenes from our Carriage and Wagon Manager, we have extracted the brake van from the workshop and have it back on the rails, and the team now has the task of finishing the roof and loading the chassis with concrete ballast.  Once that work is completed the brake van can be inspected and signed off and we can start the staff training we need to complete to carry passengers. We anticipate 4-6 weeks for the brake van and 4-6 weeks for training giving us a small window before Christmas and the weather turns to get some rides in.  There remains paperwork as always to support the change to complete, and we will do this whilst the brake van is being prepared.