Rutland Railway Museum

I visited the site near Cottesmore about 10 years ago and thought of going again. However when I tried their website "Not available" and wikipedia suggested http://www.rocks-by-rail.org/ but that only opened to one page which tells me there will be free entry over Easter 2011.

Have they closed, or is it merely a case of their website down please?

 

Hi 22A,

Sorry for the short delay in replying but the same issue affected our web hosting service as well.

To update you I can confirm that we would be pleased to see you at Cottesmore. Our general working days are Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays but guys are around on other days too such is the current rate of progress.

We are busy with a number of major long-overdue constructional projects this year and this has intentionally affected our operating ability and open days programme - apologies for that. The work, which is more than half complete has included creation of a new access way, car park, toilets, electrical distribution system, entrance road, rail served quarry area, digger "play pen" as well as a brand new passenger platform in our central area. If that was not enough, we now have to complete our track renewal and restyling programme. This has involved relaying our mainline, easetrn headshunt and we will shortly be starting to install a new road into the platform and relaying the junction to join the quarry railway. The fitting of facing point locks to meet current HMRI recommendations is in hand with help from our friends from other railways for which we offer our very great thanks.

In our down time, in response to feedback from visitors, we have worked with the Melton & Oakham Waterways Trust to clear our part of the Oakham Canal of undergrowth and this will be a far more interesting feature when we reopen later this year.

As so much has changed at the Museum, we were grant funded to review our marketing name and following a great deal of local and specialist feedback and discussion, the Museum will now be marketed under the "Rocks by Rail: the living ironstone museum" title.

As always, we rely entirely on volunteer labour, charitable donations and some very helpful sponsors. If we had a magic wand, we would complete all of the underlying work overnight and then quietly get on with the job of operating the Museum but in reality, these things do take time. We do, however, hope to be back on course for a late 2011 relaunch and we hope that you will be able to revisit to see quite how much has changed in the last 10 years. We hope that you will see a well presented and focussed collection of operational exhibits representing a typical 1950's and 1960's east midlands ironstone quarry railway system.

In the short term, and back to your original observation, the old website remains and should be accessible ( www.rutlandrailwaymuseum.org.uk ) while the new site has a holding home page from which we will start to expand the detail as it becomes available for visitors. We do not want to raise expectations on the website before we can deliver this at the Museum.

Once again, thank you for the feedback and hope to meet you when you visit in the near future. If you would like to PM me, I can arrange for one of our volunteers to show you around "access all areas" if that would be of interest to you.

Regards,

Simon Layfield
Secretary
Rocks by Rail: the living ironstone museum

 

Many thanks for this full & prompt response Simon.

 

Thanks for the update!

Interesting information........

I hope to visit at some point in the very near future.

 

2 new volunteers waiting in the wings here, just need somebody to contact about it! tried ringing the number several times but no response!

 

Steve,

Can you PM me and we can enrol you for duty straight away.

Thanks,

Simon

 

Had a quick visit this afternoon, only for an hour, so didn't speak to anyone. We visited as a 'casual visitor' and can reliably say less is definitely more. For those that have not been in a while the new car park and entrance way is a great improvement, you are confronted with very clear signs and map. The rebranding exercise is a success! The new station platform in well underway and according to a notice tracklaying into it is about to commence. We noticed just about every item there had an A4 label on it informing you of what it is and its history which we found useful. On the map there was the 'loco yard' which didn't appear to have been started yet but was obvious where it will be. We took a walk along the 'nature trail' and found the path quite accessible for 3/4 of its length, it was nice to be walking between the wagons one minute then seemingly a million miles away from it all the next! The picnic locations well sited in the rural location also affording excellent views of the running line. It will be good when the running line is opened up at its northern extremity which is still a bit of a dumping ground although the handy A4 notice told us this was in the pipeline. Another notice told us and showed the progress of he canal site clearance which once done will be another plus point. Since the railway has had a clear out everything seems a lot more organised and less like a scrapyard as has been said in the past! Work in the loco shed looks steady with one locomotive nearing completion and another in early stages. We also had a walk up to the digger area which again, we can see the potential with and once completed will provide lots of operational interest! The cafe seemed basic and somewhat dated, more like a work canteen or truck stop, I feel this could be improved vastly with some tasteful furniture and being made more 'cosy'. The museum is also sited in this building which was very embryonic and could be used to better tell the ironstone story (I'm sure this is the plan long term)
All in all very impressive progress has been made since my last visit 2 years ago, and more progress than I believe has ever been made (have been visiting since the late 80's)
Regards
Steve

 

Thanks for this information as i intended to visit this week possibly Tuesday looks like they are really getting it together there

 

Thank you for these words Steve and am glad you found your visit interesting and informative, as one of the regular volunteers I hope to see you there soon and keep the progress coming. It has been a long road so far but we are keen to make the site as pleasant for visitors as possible both enthusiast and casual!

Hope to see you soon

Gary

Operations RBR

 

I visited on Tuesday 9th my my they have a lot of stock some really interesting wagons .They are going to restore a piece of the old Oakham canal .The staff are very friendly and I even had a footplate ride on one of the Diesel locomotives .I wasnt expecting anything to be running so nice treat to see two of the diesel locomotives moving around .Its my first visit here and will not be the last even tho its over 100mile round trip. Well done you folks
Paul