Moorland & City Railways website

Hi
There is a link off the Churnet Valley Railway website (under news) or paste this link http://www.churnet-valley-railway.co.uk/mcr/index.htm
Under Galleries are several pictures I have taken of the Stoke to Leek Brook section with others to be added later.

 

loads more pictures added....took me 4 hours to do a 2 mile section fighting through the undergrowth...!! this will be a very big job..

 

Quite frankly - in order to protect the railway aspirations, I would get a local agricultural contractor with a decent flail to do the whole of the length now owned this winter, as those silver birches are little more than weeds now.

Leave them only a couple more years and you will have the environmentalists pressing for SSSI status, or a TPO.

This is a serious factor that besets many former railway sites - so please - just do it!

 

I dont think its environmentalists that should be worried about when it comes to cutting back the undergrowth (unless there really is something of great importance), but instead people who've moved alongside the line since it closed looking for ways to prevent it reopening and/or restrict its use - a very common problem.

Incidentally, it'd be interesting to know the legal status of line; the section leased from NR is presumably still a statutory railway, but was the Caldon Low end legally adandoned to allow its sale?

Chris

 

The line to Coldon low as far as I am aware has not been sold to City and Moorlander it has been leased, very long term from what i have been told
Ii would probarly be better to describe the line as " Mothballed " like so many lines in the sixties should of
I expect the legalities regarding housing, SSI etc are different when compared to the problems that exist when track is torn up and land sold off
Good luck them its going to be interesting times ahead for the CVR

 

thanks for you comments, if you look at their website there is a section with all the official consultation and decision notices so you can read up on the official process and maps of the land area leased. There is some serious work to be done but will result in a huge 4 line heritage / working railway.

 

The biggest problem that I could see was that Stockton Brook tunnel has been re-lined, It appears to have compromised the loading gauge considerably.

 

Looking at this photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/d9006/3867635183/ what you say might apply to the vertical dimension, but surely not to each side of the single track?
Solution; MCR dig off the top layers to lower the track, and feel grateful if it really has been re-lined, so they don't have to. How long is that tunnel anyway?

Moderator. Would it be appropriate to merge this with the MCR thread currently languishing on page 3 of this forum? Might save some reinventing of wheels.

 

If the track currently in place in the tunnel has seen traffic at some point in the past with the lining in place, Why should it now be tight to gauge?
Unless the stock using the line was to a smaller gauge.

Solutions as stated to dig off and lower but also consider using F33 type sleepers which are shallow depth and will give you about another 40mm lowering.

 

I wish this enterprise good luck, but with a scepticism borne from seeing so many other apparently good schemes come to nothing for want of capital and a government that pretends to want more traffic on rail but in actuality never lifts a finger to see it happen (south of the scottish border anyway).
The worry for me is that an enterprise of this nature will struggle to make a profit in the conventional sense and will rely largely on both heritage running and on volunteers for many tasks such as maintaining permanent way and station manning, which brings in all the idiot bureaucracy of central government. We might see a trackside undergrowth clearance team being forced to submit to humiliating CRB checks (and paying for the privilege) which tends to take the edge of what we used to think was an innocent pleasure.
I am looking forward to reading whether the MCR will be applying for a simple LRO limiting travel to 25mph or whether they will be some kind of open access operator with powers to run at higher speeds and all the H&S checks that go with it.
I may sound like a damp squib but I really want this to succeed and will be buying my rover ticket as soon as I can.

 

Yes, you are quite right. Looking at the other photo, from inside the tunnel, it is evidently in gauge. I remember the tunnel with double track. They obviously centred the track when they did the re-line.

 

Seeing as they are planning to run trains at 60mph they can't run on a LRO. Open Access is the way forward, plus if you read the documents on their website it does give you an insight into their plans.

As for the CRB checks why do you need it to clear vegetation??? CRB checks are there to protect young children, when the said person is working in an environment with kids. Unless Staffordshire vegetation is different to everywhere else I think you're being a bit OTT.

I don't think this is going to fail as if you read up on it they have done more than enough homework so to speak. In one of the articles it says the have been negotiating since Feb 2007 I think it said? Yet they only released an outline of their plans in October 2009. We still don't know all the details, and they presently only have the Cauldon Low to Leekbrook section. On their website they say they gain the Leekbrook to Stoke section in March 2010. There is till an awful lot to come out of this group I think and personally I find it one of the most exciting projects presently on going.