NEWS OF Rudyard Lake Steam Railway

The ten an a quarter railway society has been reformed with the assistance of some of the volunteers at Rudyard and has a new website www.ten-and-a-quarter-railway-society.co.uk. The aim is to promote railways such as ours and catalogue their history.

We are very sorry to report the death of Dave Cruickshank on Saturday May 22nd. He was the first new person to volunteer when we took over the railway in 2000. He was a key supporter and will be sadly missed.

Trains now running every day until September 5th from 11.00am to 4pm

Platform 2 cafe has been extended with the canopy increased in size to give better protection from sun and rain. More seating and lighting has been added. The long awaited clock tower has also been added to the station canopy. Resurfacing of Platform 2 is underway.

The trains are now running every Wednesday until the end of September and the cafe at Rudyard Station -  Platform 2 will be open on Wednesdays in June.

No.7 Merlin has been poorly and his his front driving wheels are missing whilst we replace a broken bearing. Now done by mid June and he is back at work again

Additional storage space is being added to the cafe at Rudyard. Also a new automatic refilling and water treatment facility has been added to the locomotive water tank. This puts in a measured amount of water treatment every time the tank refills.

The additional Flashing lights and second lifting barrier were installed on the level crossing in early May. It now has four seta of warning lights and lifting barriers on both sides of the crossing. The lifting arms are worked by using adapted car soft top actuators. Weed Killing trains were run this week before the weeds grow too much.

The canopy on Platform 2 has finally had its railway style valances added and looks really well. Its very popular when the rain showers blow in. The early May Bank holiday was busy after a slow start on Saturday May 1st. Two trains ran on Sunday & Monday with three engines in steam. Trains on Monday ran close to capacity all day.

A second lifting barrier has been added to the level crossing at Rudyard station. Additional flashing lights will follow shortly. The signals at Rudyard have gone back to traditional semaphore upper quadrant types. They look much better than colour light signals and are now permanent fuxtures.

The Railway hosted a Macmillan Charity Day on Saturday March 27th organised by one of our volunteers Peter Moore.  Sponsored walks round the lake had dry weather and a two train service meant the walkers got free train rides. All the normal fare income for the day is being donated to Macmillan as well.

Work to extend the station canopy at Rudyard Station by 50% is complete. This will give much better conditions when the weather is poor. The path from the Platform to the level crossing has also been concreted. Snow arrived again in large amounts on 21st of February and so regretfully the trains were cancelled for the day. We have a number of our popular steam engine driver experience courses booked in for the next few weeks so the trains will be steaming up the tracks.

The steam engine Waverley was dismantled and is about to be fully professionally repainted in Apple Green. its now back together and in use. On Sunday the 14th Feb. the boiler was washed out and the cladding removed as a first step. Merlin was in service and the trains were busy.

The main news in December and January was the very cold weather and snow. Despite this and frozen water supplies we have managed to run all the planned trains. Improvements to Rudyard station are in hand ready for the new season.

Work on the track took a back seat in December due to the weather but work on clearing the site has continued and started again in mid January with the track blown clear of leaves. Work to the drainage by the track has had welcome effects so the path is drier and there are fewer trespassers on the track.

The steam engines are having their annual boiler tests and King Arthur and Pendragon successfully passed on January 27th. Waverley and Excalibur passed on February 3rd ready for the main 2010 season. All our steam locomotives will be in use in 2010.

Waverley (Curwen Atlantic) was partially dismantled over the winter as it is to have a repaint again to a new variation of LNER Apple Green.

The local community payback team are working at the station to tidy up the site and path to the lake and are doing a very good job. Its hoped that the County Council will do some work to the car park soon.

We have lots of learn to drive a steam train driver experience courses booked so the railway will have trains running most days over the next couple of weeks. We are running daily public trains at half term February 14-21st

For the inside information log onto our blog @  Rudyard News

Updated February 8th , 2010