On New Year's Eve, it is customary to review things past and think about things yet to come.
2008 will be notable as the tenth anniversary of the MRT's final train at the original site, at what was the Moseley Boys School, Cheadle Hulme, Manchester. The last train, shown in the picture, was run on the 12th of April 1998, using LBT class Ruston loco "Mavis" (makers no. 7002/0967/6 of 1967). This loco is now resident at Threlkeld Quarry, near Keswick. Since that day, the MRT has had two storage sites before finally arriving at the permanent site at Apedale, Staffordshire (see "How to find us" on the homepage).
As you can read and see elsewhere in these notes, progress has been steady and solid at Apedale during 2007, and we are optimistic that 2008 will see the operation of a passenger train service at Apedale.
Our key objectives for 2008 are to complete Phase One of the passenger railway, and to erect a large storage building which will allow the MRT's large collection of locomotives and other artifacts to emerge from ten years of storage.
There's a lot of work to do to achieve this, and all help is welcome - we're at work on Saturdays at Apedale, plus occasional Sundays (contact us here for details). I don't think we'll be able to run a passenger train on 12 April 2008, ten years to the day after the Last Train at Cheadle, but with a concerted effort, later in the Summer may be possible. Why not come along and help us meet this goal (or maybe a donation - perhaps Santa was generous this year?).
