What a lot of good news we have for you this month! First of all, if you don’t have one already, you can download a copy of our 2015 Visitor guide HERE. And we hope you agree, it looks like an interesting season ahead!

We were operating in the quarry section with JEAN and SIR THOMAS in January, testing out operations using the new quarry spur. We carried out a wagon exchange where Jean swapped her train of tipplers for a new train of hoppers brought up from the canal by SIR THOMAS – the whole thing was caught on camera by one of our volunteers, and you can view the resulting video on our new Youtube channel – HERE. This opens up a lot of possibilities in the quarry section, and we already have plans to clear more undergrowth so more of the quarry can be seen.

Our first public running day of the year was yesterday, 15th February, but already our attention has turned to our March event – our Spring Gala With A Stanton Theme. The all important e-flyer is HERE. This promises to be a real bumper event with Andrew Barclay 0-6-0 SALMON returning to Cottesmore for a visit many years after leaving for pastures new. This is a very rare opportunity to see a real icon of ironstone once again working iron ore tipplers and hoppers on an ironstone railway. Plus, as SALMON worked at Harlaxton for Stanton Iron Ore Quarries, we will be reuniting this loco with its original shed – for our workshop, The Woolsthorpe shed was dismantled and moved from Woolsthorpe and reconstructed at Rocks By Rail! The loco is on hire to us from our friends at The Royal Deeside Raiwlay. This could be another three steam loco event, but we hope to have diesel Sentinel JEAN in operation too, creating scenes that were once seen at Ilkeston, home of Stanton Ironworks. Another diesel Sentinel to feature will be GRAHAM, still approaching completion of restoration in the Woolsthorpe shed, and which we hope to make a cab-accessible loco for the event.

We’ll leave you with a photo of SALMON in action north of the border. We hope to see you on March 15th! Until next time…