Moseley Railway Trust wins go-ahead for new railway and museum

The Moseley Railway Trust is delighted to announce that it has secured planning consent for the development of its new site at the Apedale Heritage Centre, Newcastle Under Lyme.

At a planning meeting on 30th August, Newcastle Borough Council gave approval for the Moseley Railway Trust to start implementing its ambitious plans. These plans include:-

a.. A 2'0" gauge railway, just over a mile in length, from the Apedale Heritage Centre, running into the adjacent Country Park.
b.. Outline planning consent for a spacious new museum building, in which the Moseley Railway Trust's collection of narrow gauge locomotives, wagons and other artefacts will be put on display.
c.. A new storage building to house most of the Trust's collection of around 60 locomotives.
d.. Redevelopment of the existing mine buildings at Apedale to provide workshop and other facilities.

Phil Robinson, chairman of the Moseley Railway Trust said "It has always been the vision of the MRT to develop the UK's premier museum of narrow gauge railways. Gaining planning consent for Apedale is a significant step towards delivering this vision. The hard work now starts, as we have huge challenges in raising the funds to implement our plans, and to construct our railway and other projects".

The new 2'0" gauge railway will be built in phases with the initial phase consisting of about 500 metres from the Apedale Heritage Centre to Apedale Road. It is hoped that construction of this phase will be sufficiently advanced to permit a public open day during the summer of 2007. Full opening of the first phase for public operation, dependant on the HMRI approval, is anticipated around the end of 2007.

The Moseley Railway Trust have been on site for some months since securing a land purchase of the site at Apedale. Thus far, activities have been limited on the site, although a number of locomotives are stored at Apedale and several have been run there. Occasional opportunity has been taken to lay temporary track and run a loco and wagons for a few yards as seen in the pictures. Please note that visitors intending to come to Apedale should confirm what activities are taking place on site prior to a visit to avoid disappointment.

Apedale Land Purchase Completed

Moseley Railway Trust and Apedale Heritage Centre have jointly completed the purchase 8.5 acres of land adjacent to the Heritage Centre on Thursday 13th April after an 18-month project to raise the funds and undertake various legal requirements including changing restrictive covenants on the use of this land placed there by the Coal Authority to protect the land from commercial development. Completion of the purchase has allowed Moseley Railway Trust to adapt some of the existing mines buildings on the site for new uses.

First of these was the "Red Shed" - a corrugated iron building with a steel frame, formerly used to house coal bagging equipment from when the site was one of the last working mines in the area. Conversion of this building has allowed MRT to house the Cadeby collection, which will start to arrive at the end of April 2006. The conversion has required removal of the coal hopper at the south end of the building, and removal of the south end wall and conversion into a pair of opening doors. Parallel with this, nine track panels have been constructed to stand the loco's on inside the shed using rail and steel sleepers acquired from the Woodhead Tunnel. This will allow the Cadeby locomotives to be unloaded directly onto a section of temporary track outside and rolled into the storage shed. Other work on the building has improved the weather protection and security of the building. It is envisaged that this building will eventually be demolished to make room for a purpose-built running shed once other covered accommodation has been constructed.

The next stage is to submit a formal planning application to allow construction on-site to commence in earnest, which will take about three months.Assuming this is granted without any delays, the first project will be to construct a new shed to house the MRT collection currently in store at Buxworth in Derbyshire to reduce the cost of storage. Once this is building is complete and loco's safely installed, delivery of other materials and construction of the running line and other infrastructure can commence - this should start towards the end of 2006, with an anticipated completion of the line sometime during 2007.

Cadeby Exhibits Move

The 2’0” gauge Cadeby Light Railway was founded in 1963 by the Rev Teddy Boston; following his death in 1986, the railway was continued by his widow, Audrey Boston, until the Railway held its last public open day in May 2005. Since May 2005, efforts have been made to find a new location for the Railway equipment at Cadeby.

On Tuesday 4th April, Mrs Boston’s two steam locomotives, the Bagnall “Pixie” (WB2090/19) and the standard gauge Peckett locomotive (P2012/41) were collected and moved to a new location. These two locomotives have been sold to a private individual, and it is anticipated that they will form part of the collection at the Hollycombe Steam Collection near Liphook in Hampshire.

The majority of the other 2’0” gauge equipment, including 16 historic diesel & petrol locomotives, will be moving shortly to the Moseley Railway Trust’s new location at the Apedale Heritage Centre, near Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Staffordshire. This equipment is privately owned by a group of individuals. Speaking for this group, Simon Lomax said “We are looking forward to working as part of the Moseley team to develop the new museum and railway, and we wish to publicly express our gratitude to the Moseley Railway Trust for offering the Cadeby equipment a new home”.

It should be noted that there are currently four Moseley Railway Trust locomotives on display as part of the Apedale Heritage Centre museum, and this museum, together with its associated displays of local mining heritage, remains open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays between 10am to 4pm.

Mrs Boston continues to reside at the Old Rectory, Cadeby, although the property is for sale. The estate agents for the sale are Country Properties of Hinckley, tel 01455 890898. Readers are asked to note that Mrs Boston’s home and grounds are private property, and to respect her privacy.

Newly acquired loco on display at Apedale

Ruston & Hornsby Ltd 48DLZ 256314/48, which was donated by Woodhorn Colliery Museum at Ashington, Northumberland in 2005 has been moved to the new MRT site at Apedale Heritage Centre near Newcastle Under Lyme, arriving on 2nd March 2006 and accompanied by the two mines tubs donated at the same time. The loco has had a stand-up cab added as it was intended to be used for passenger haulage at a proposed 2’ gauge tourist line at Woodhorn; however this will be removed when time and funds permit and the loco restored to its original condition. Although already regauged to 2’ gauge, the work is incomplete, and work remains to be done on the braking system and bodywork. Meanwhile the loco has been placed on display at the rear of the Apedale Heritage Centre on a short section or rail constructed in December for this purpose.

MRT acquires WW1 Water Tank

The Moseley Railway Trust have just taken delivery of a former WW1 narrow gauge railway watertank. This water tank wagon, currently devoid of an underframe and bogies, was originally classified in military service as a "Class H" for use behind the trenches during the First World War on the extensive 60cm trench railways built by the British.

The French, American & German armies too used similar 60cm gauge systems, and these short-lived "supply lines" helped preserve the bloody stalemate in that conflict, bring supplies up to the front line, shells to the guns and taking wounded to the rear. Water tanks such as this one would have been used to provide potable water for troops and animals, as well as water for cooking, washing, steam engine boilers etc in the dryer areas of France and Belgium. After WW1, this tank wagon was purchased by W Dennis & Sons along with much other material for the extensive 60cm rail system at their farming estates in Lincolnshire. The tank, devoid of its underframe and wheels saw out it's days as a large water butt for fire fighting purposes, and its recent delivery to MRT represents the culmination of over 4 years work and negotiation.

Utilising a pair of standard WDLR bogies acquired on behalf of MRT several years ago and the construction of a new wagon mainframe, it is intended to reconstruct this historic piece of rolling stock which will be unique in the UK. Of all narrow gauge military railway rolling stock in WW1, these watertanks were the only known vehicles to carry camouflage livery!