Also: 
STANHOPE STATION CAFÉ OPENS FOR BUSINESS: With immediate effect the café on the main platform at Stanhope station on the Weardale Railway will open for business on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Call in any time between 10am and 4pm for hot and cold drinks, light refreshments, hot snacks and sandwiches or try the All-day breakfast. All food items are freshly prepared on the premises. You can dine in the café itself, or on the platform or at a table inside one of our First Class coaches. In addition there is a special Sunday Afternoon Tea offer available from 2pm for £5.95 per person and with reductions for children. So come and capture the atmosphere of a country railway station and catch up on the news of the Weardale Railway.
                                                                                                      Poster HERE

A4 - UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA TO VISIT WEARDALE RAILWAY ON 14th /15th MAY

The 'Steam Dreams' charter train Company is operating an 8-day railtour of the UK and it is visiting the Weardale Railway, arriving as an empty stock train on Tuesday 15th May from Hexham where the passengers will overnight. The train will  depart Stanhope at Wednesday morning (15th May) after the passengers transfer by road from Hexham  - heading for visits to the Wensleydale and North Yorkshire Moors Railways. The Weardale Railway Trust will provide the footplate and guard pilotmen on both journeys. Richard Maughan, Trust Chairman on Tuesday and Keith McNally on the Wednesday will carry out the footplate duties.

Expected timings are: Tuesday - Pass Bishop Auckland 14.30, arrive Stanhope 15.35 and on Wednesday - depart Stanhope 09.30 pass Bishop Auckland 10.35.

(The A4 class locomotive 'Union of South Africa' was built for the LNER in 1937 and originally numbered 4488, it was named after the then newly-formed  Union of South Africa).

UPDATE - Tuesday 14th May, 8.20pm: Below - Bedded down at Stanhope Station for the night.

• STANHOPE STATION SPRING CLEAN :- Before the start of the summer season trains a volunteer working party was organised on Saturday April 20th. It was a splendid sunny spring day and 25 Weardale Railway Trust volunteers turned out and carried out a range of tasks throughout the day. There was a long list of work to be done and it was decided that the priority would be lifting the matting from the recreation field, removing it from the car park to a secure place, checking the electrics of the lamp posts, painting of the lamp posts and painting the fences. Everybody split into small groups according to their abilities and set to work. Thanks to Ruth Carroll . Trust Volunteer Liaison Officer for her work in organising and preparing for the day. Below is a selection of photos taken on the day. Thanks to Ruth Carroll (RC) and Alison Phillips (AP) for the photographs.

Matting had been laid down in the field adjacent to the station to make a carpark for the Polar Express Passengers. 
The very wet first quarter of 2013 meant that lifting had to be delayed until the ground began to dry out.                
As it turned out lifting of the matting is a job requiring a great deal of strength as it is held down with clips.           
Likewise transferring it one from place to another takes strength and team work. Happily everyone worked well      
 together and there was a lot of good natured banter between them all.                 (Photo AP)                                     

John Hargreaves and Steve Raine worked throughout the day looking at the electrics on the lamp posts whilst Douglas Collins
 painted the posts black. The posts certainly looked much better at the end of the day.               (RC)                                       

Painting of the fences is a job that is ongoing at the station since there are so many of them. Armed with a paint kettle 
and a paint brush each volunteer took a small section of fence and got to work. By the end of the day a long section of 
fence was looking noticeably smarter and only a few volunteers had managed to get the paint not only on the fence       
but also on themselves.                  (RC)                                                                                                                           

At lunch time everyone stopped for a picnic lunch which was kindly laid on by the company and prepared by the lovely ladies
in the cafe. Cups of tea and coffee and squash were readily available throughout the day as the combination of hot weather 
and hard work meant everyone had worked up a thirst.              (RC)                                                                                       

• As Ruth Carroll says "It was a lovely day and it was nice to meet up with each other. The work will carry on other Saturdays depending on the weather and people's availability. A Big thank you to everyone who took part".

G C Mudd 29 April 2013 : gcmudd@ntlworld.com

• BBC RAILWAY VIDEO ARCHIVE :- Tony Slack, long time WR volunteer and now a Director on the Board of the Trust has drawn our attention to a location on the BBC website where they have stored a bunch of archived railway videos. They can be accessed at the site below. The videos date from the 1960’s onwards and includes several real gems such “ Engines must not enter the Potato Siding”, a film about railways in the North of England made in 1969. Recommended,  but can be addictive.       http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/collections/p01277qd/steam-railways

Mike Wood, Trust Vice Chairman , and Sunday gang member watches the by-product 
of their work going up in smoke . 14 April 2013.                          Photo : Ruth Carroll.

• THE SUNDAY GANG : RUTH CARROLL REPORTS : Ruth, who is our Volunteer Liaison Officer sent us this report and pictures :  “ I always like to say a thank you in my report to the Sunday Gang for all the hard work they do. I decided yesterday to go along and meet the guys and try to give a hand if I could. Those of you who know me well,  know that I am not the most energetic of people. I have to say I had a really wonderful time and I have to take my hat off to the gang. They all made me feel really welcome and had some helpful advice to make the job easier.  They carry on working in all conditions. In the few hours that I was there it rained several times but that did not discourage them. The work they do is not in the public eye but it plays a vital part in the operation of the Railway. It is a bit like painting the Forth Bridge, once you get to the end you have to start again.  So if you feel like some exercise on a Sunday come along to the Sunday gang and give a hand. You will really enjoy it.”   Ruth Carroll, Volunteer Liaison Officer. You can contact Ruth on : RCarroll@britamrail.com

Some of the Sunday Gang members taking a break on 14^th  April – clearly a non operating day.

Saturday 20th April
Trust Volunteers' Working Party

Stanhope Station Spring Clean

Details here

Mike Woods recently restored Class 122 Bubble Car may move to another railway for at least part of this year
but meanwhile Graham Isom, WR General Manager, on right, briefed a group of trainee drivers and Mike Wood
is seen at the controls the right hand photo.                                                            Both photos : Alison Phillips.

Trust Steam Loco, No. 40  is  now being worked as part of its 10 year overhaul in three places. The boiler is with
Rail Restorations in Shildon, the firebox is with Isaac Newton in Bradford.  Meanwhile the frames and cylinders
are being worked On in the Wolsingham Depot as the photos above show.                   Both photos : Alison Phillips.

• NEW FOOTPATH LINKING STANHOPE STATION TO TOWN :  Stanhope is  one  of five  places in County Durham  selected to be part of the  Destination Development Plan. As part of this plan the South West Economic Regeneration Team has completed a new project to build a footpath linking the Station at Stanhope with the town centre. The signposted path runs from down platform ‘kissing gate’   re-crosses the line near the Butts  and using an overgrown strip of land alongside the railway to reach the side road leading into the market place. A new leaflet published by DCC and the Minerals Valleys Project gives details of this and two other walks from the Station, or you can download  it  from :- http://content.durham.gov.uk/PDFRepository/countryside_pub_stanhope_MVP_walk.pdf

The Sunday gang assisting a herd of deer across the line adjacent to the site of the
North Pole ‘set’ for the Polar Express. 27 January 2013 .         Photo : John Lewins.

•  LEAMSIDE TRACK DELIVERED TO WEARDALE RAILWAY : Trevor Horner reports : Network Rail have now completed Phase 1 of the track recovery which has seen everything removed between Penshaw and Tursdale (to the rear of the old NCB Workshops). We have received a total of 332 rails, 320 of which are full 60 foot lengths . Some 15000 keys and approx. 350 pairs of fishplates and bolts have been delivered along with the rails. We have contracted to take 6 miles of rail, the equivalent of 528 x 60' and we are awaiting the commencement of the 2nd phase to receive the remaining rails.

Rails from the Leamside line now stacked trackside at Wolsingham station.
                                                                             Photo : Trevor Horner.

•      WEARDALE RAILWAY TRUST BOARD ELECTS NEW CHAIRMAN, BOARD MEMBERS : Last month the Trust Chairman, David Scott, announced his intention to resign as chairman for personal reasons. All members of the Board expressed their appreciation for his long and dedicated service on the Board and will look forward to continue seeing him in a volunteer role in the future. Brian Cox another long standing and valued member of the Board also resigned last month however he is continuing his role of training and rostering guard duties on the railway.  The Board elected Richard Maughan as Chairman, Mike Wood remains as deputy Chairman and three new members of the Board have been proposed and are in the process of being co-opted, they are Peter Baker, Tony Slack and Kevin Richardson, all of whom are active volunteers.

•       2013 PASSENGER SERVICE PLANS : Details of the ‘themed’ dining train service announced earlier are being finalised and it is intended that a further announcement will be made in the next few days. At the moment the tentative plan is for the trains to run from the beginning of June through to October, after which the Polar Express services would start in November. The general framework would be for trains to run on most Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays during this period.

Gerry Mudd, 31 March 2013.

All comments, suggestions, contributions please to gcmudd@ntlworld.com

New freight flow for Weardale Railway owner. DCR 56311 hauling empty box cars, seen here heading north
through Birtley on the 14th March. See news item.                        ( Photo : John Lewins )                               

56311 again going north across Durham viaduct on 15th March, heading for Morpeth.
                                                                                              (Photo : John Lewins)

• BARS GROUP WINS NEW FREIGHT CONTRACT : Devon and Cornwall Railways (DCR) is like the Weardale Railway, part of the British American Rail Services group and is one of six companies approved to operate freight services on the Network. Earlier this month it commenced operating unit coal trains between Butterwell Coal concentration depot, near Morpeth to Chaddesden sidings near Derby. Initially running on 5days per week it usually passes Darlington heading north at around 14.30 hrs and heading south at 20.00 and stays until 20.50 hrs.

The Mk2 coaching stock used in the Polar Express last year, standing in the down platform at Stanhope
in Ferbruary will be used for dining trains later this year.    See news item.                                          

The interior of one of the coaches after undergoing a thorough deep clean by Chris Simpson and Daniel Brown 
in February this year.                              (Photo : Chris Simpson.)                                                                     

• WEARDALE RAILWAYS : NEW SERVICES FOR 2013 : Following on from the successful and oversubscribed, afternoon tea trains last year and also after a study of the marketing and operation of the outstandingly Polar Express trains in November and December, the Company has decided that it will try to build on this success by using the same team and approach to market a series of ‘value added services in 2013. Planning is underway to develop a programme of lunch, Afternoon Tea and Dinner trains using the four Mk2 coaches hauled probably by a Class 31 diesel. an added advantage in using the Mk2’s is that they have air conditioning Still to be finalised the programme will consist of over 100 trains operating on over 70 days and is targeted to commence in May. More details to come.

• You can read a statement from Ed Ellis, Managing Director, Weardale Railways CIC  HERE

 Gerry Mudd, 22 March 2013.

All comments, suggestions, contributions please to gcmudd@ntlworld.com