Exhibits, Shows and Displays

Is this the best NON-preservation railway in the UK?

Recently I visited a fledgling 'preserved' railway site and was disappointed to note a couple of things. Firstly I asked if they had any old railway tickets for sale (which you can sometimes find if youre lucky). 'No, we had some but we threw them all away' came the reply. Instead their sales area displayed lots of things like plastic trains with faces on the front! But it seems they were not content with throwing away the real heart of the railway (ie the genuine artefacts) and replacing them with modern tat. I went outside into their yard where their rolling stock stood. About half of the wagons were ballast wagons. Another man who was there said 'those are rubbish -theyre going to be picked up soon and taken to the scrapyard -because they only have one chamber they offload the ballast all in one go.' Here we go again I thought: these were BR wagons, and if BR could use them for years, why cant you? Does anyone else know a preserved line as 'non-preservation' & hopeless as this? I wasnt sure whether to say where this location was or not, but since both answerers so far appear to be curious of this detail, it was the Stainmoor Railway, at what was originally Kirkby Stephen East station (located at the edge of the village itself).

Public Comments

1. I don't know which preserved railway you visited but I'm sure they're not all like that. Why don't you join them as a volunteer and help to make a difference?
2. You don't say where it was.
3. Sounds like the Churnet Valley to me. Enough said!