Leek and Rudyard Railway

Railway News and News Archive


2021 Railway News

January 2021

After the frustration of 2020, 2021 started with the usual winter maintenance, with the main project being track renewal around Hunthouse Wood. Despite the changeable weather, good progress was made.

February 2021

Track renewal continued along with a comprehensive overhaul of all our passenger rolling stock, getting ready for the new season. The 2021 leaflet was also completed and printed.

March 2021

The winter maintenance program was completed and the engines and carriages brought back into service ahead of reopening in April. Work commenced on preparing the shed extension at the back of the site.

April 2021

Work was complete on the track and attention turned to getting all the engines back in running order for reopening.

May 2021

The shed extension base was complete and ready for the next phase scheduled for late summer. The railway running proved very popular with very busy weekends.

June 2021

Work was focussed largely on vegitation maintenance and running repairs. A programme of planting in the flowerbeds at Rudyard station commenced which improved the look considerably. Weed control due to the weather was the other main task!

July-August 2021

Our summer season was one of the busiest on record which kept us all busy. The Mull Gala had all the Mull engines out which help recreate the atmosphere.

September 2021

The annual Steam Gala was well attended and the weather held out nicely. Many thanks to our guest engine Nelly.

October 2021

The highlight this month was Halloween with the return of night trains for the first time in 2 years. Our revamped decorations and night time lighting were well received with the highest attendance we have ever had for these 2 days.

November 2021

Despite the cancellation of the Lake Fireworks we still ran daytime trains in November as we held our last public running day of the main season. Santa tickets sold out completely by the start of the month.

December 2021

Our santa trains we completely sold out again and all ran smoothly due to the excellent efforts of the team at the Railway and the Lake. We hope everyone enjoyed themselves as much as we did. Apart from our NYE and NYD trains, that's it for this year and focus now turns to the winter maintenance.