Churnet Valley Railway

[Graham Walters]

Last Christmas the wife bought me one of those "Day Out" presents that you see on a rack in Smiths, On looking at the trips available I opted for a cream tea on the Churnet Valley Line.

 

The wife and I made the trip to Staffordshire yesterday ( Sunday 9th Aug 2015) to take a "cream tea" on the Churnet Valley railway.  It was over 300 miles round trip, but due to my work rota, an overnight on the Saturday couldn't be arranged.

 

The day would serve two masters, or so I thought !

Firstly I would get to look at some more and different engines, the wife got a cream tea, and I would also be able to get some pictures of the local architecture for Nick and Andrews "High Offly" layout.

 

We arrived in plenty of time, but were a bit disappointed to discover that the tickets for the cream tea only allowed us to travel at that time, and that because the kitchen and restaurant cars were at the back of the train we wouldn't be able to get off anywhere to have a look round the sheds and the rolling stock at Cheddleton, we also only went as far as Leek Brook Junction, when literature suggested that the Ipstone Loop had been opened over three years ago.

 

The only station we managed to get a look around was the rebuilt station at Kingsley & Froghall, it is actually the best place to head to as there is very little parking at the other stations, Froghall also has a souvenir shop, although only a very small section is dedicated to selling actual Churnet Valley Memorabilia, and with a minimum spend of £10 on a debit or credit card, make sure you have some cash to hand ! 

 

Once you have looked round the station building at Froghall, there isn't anything else to see, or keep you interested,as with all preserved railways they are always trying to make a few pounds to keep things going.

 

One worrying thing was that several of the platform edging slabs were loose, and I mean loose, these were quite substantial lumps of stone and could be felt to move as you walked over them, we tended to walk further away from the line after discovering that.

 

The engine we had to draw our carriages was a tank engine imported from Poland, unnamed, we were informed that it had to have the width of the tanks reduced to bring it within gauge for the line,  they seemed to be struggling to keep it going at times, it being deprived of air to fire allowing it to produce thick black smoke which soon had us all tasting burning coal, apparently they use Polish coal in it as well !, so no wonder it was having problems.

 

My wife and I couldn't fault the cream tea, which is what we went there for, but had we know sooner that we wouldn't be able to see everything that was there, I probably would have booked a trip at a different line.

 

As it turns out the quest for photo's of local architecture was less than fruitful as well, I've never seen so much re-generation going on, there were practically no Victorian warehouse type buildings to be seen on the routes we took, certainly none around Froghall, although I did get some of railway cottages above the station, it was only on the way back through Trean that I noticed an imposing four storey structure that looked quite impressive, and will certainly test Nicks scratchbuilding skills, should he want to take on the challenge !

[Reorte]

The Ipstones section is only used on occasion and has an extra charge for going that way (or at least it did the time I went there). It's unfortunate that you missed it since it's quite a gradient so you get a hard-working locomotive on it. It had the feel of the railway equivalent of an almost forgotten country lane though

[Bomag]

If you wanted to look round at Cheddleton then you could of driven to it from Kingsley in about 10 min. Come to that I would have started at Cheddleton anyway as the combined car parks haven't been full either time I have been there. However, it's it bit off not going to Ipstones when it is was timetabled, you did check the timetable?