Moorlands and City Railway

In what way??
Cheers

 

The proposal to relay the 1 mile of track on the Waterhouses branch plus the suggestion of building a MCR platform at the south end of Stoke station are both mouthwatering indeed if they come to pass.

 

Kerching..........!

Hope someone has very deep pockets...

 

The one mile of the Waterhouses branch will be yo gain access to the Lafarge cement plant - one of the main raison d'etres for the whole scheme. The Stoke access is obviously required for passenger transfer.

 

The pway have had a busy week down a Endon. The Sunday gang took out 79 life expired sleepers from the Station area, which was great going for such a small team (some were busy working on the Real Ale Trail). Today in the sweltering heat the midweek gang tidied up the sleeper beds and put in 71 sleepers, great work gang. There is still a lot of work to be done in this area but we are getting there. 3 Photos of the work the first is howwe left it, the other 2 are how we found it today

 

Means starting trains at the very foot of a 1in29 gradient. The S160s really will let everyone know they are in the area on that working!

 

Well done Jeff (and team). Any idea what you've got left to be complete on the Endon line?

 

Ralph, Life expired sleepers are just that, all the sleepers that we took out of the Cauldon line were taken to Leek Brook. The elastic spikes were a devil to get out and the sleepers just fell apart when removing them.What few that were salvagable were reused for Station use, the rest remained in a mountain until this year when most were given to Endon Village, for use on their Jubilee Beacon.

 

Great turnout today split into 2 groups at Endon. 1st gang did the drilling and screwing of the remaining sleepers that were put in last week. Whilst the 2nd gang went over the road crossing to make a start on removing the work expired sleepers from that side. Weather was better than expected and we finished the work on schedule.

 

Good work Jeff.

I was around Park Lane area the other week and noticed the track was all over-grown again. Seems like another flailer session required?

 

Endon platform looked clear earlier this year. Looks like it needs a hefty dose of weedkiller too!

 

Surely It's just wasting time and money, to redo something that has already been done? Why has someone not kept on top of the weeds?

 

I agree the article makes for very interesting reading!

Some points mentioned, apart from the Waterhouses branch relaying plan - will that include re-opening the station there if there is any value from doing that, P + R to Alton Towers perhaps as it's on a main road?:

* Stockton Brook station will re-open.
* The Uttoxeter Canal features in the Local Development Frameworks of both Staffordshire Moorlands District and East Staffordshire Borough councils - if they have designs on reopening it that would be tricky as most of its route lies beneath the railway trackbed south of Froghall!
* Alton Towers may lose significant car parking revenue if many people arrive there by train - surely that could be eased through train ticketing arrangements?

 

Don't worry about grass and weeds; you can run a train through those if necessary. It's been a jungle of a year for growth. Unfortunately really effective "once-a-year" weedkillers are all banned now so it will be a recurring task. At least the trees aren't back.

 

Caldon Low was always going to be a bit of a non-place for passenger trains to terminate. Waterhouses would be excellent providing a direct link to the Manifold Valley Trail and its cycle hire centre. Planning Permission and/or a TWA Order would be required but somehow I think that this would have a much easier ride than Alton Towers.

 

Rest assured the Uttoxeter Canal and railway can both be restored without one blocking the line for the other. The study we (CUCT) had done a few year ago confirms this, and explicitly says that there are advantages in railway and canal working together. I'm glad to say that both sides recognise this and we have been speaking for some time about our various ambitions.

 

Are you the same Steve i met at the Patriot Board meeting ?