Care in the community
Monday 07 July 2008
Just
occasionally, the grown-up railways in this part of
the world risk a glance sideways and realise that
there is other railway life around them, and they
wouldn’t catch anything too nasty if they
outstretched a hand in its direction. And so it came
to pass that we were invited by Merseyrail to
participate in a community railway weekend. This
involved marking the (near) completion of improvement
works at Southport station, and the
first-time-for-ages running of Preston to Ormskirk
trains on a Sunday, courtesy of Northern Rail.
Binns was used in its established role
of nostalgia-provoker and crowd-puller, at
Southport station on the Saturday and at Ormskirk
on the Sunday. Alongside it was our new set of
display boards, advertising the club’s various
doings. We also opened the clubhouse to visitors
on the Saturday, as a reminder that Chapel St. was
not the first station building to serve Southport,
fancy new roof notwithstanding. One of our members
also ‘did something’ at Meols Cop station, but to
date has not reported exactly what. Use of a
bulldozer to facilitate starting again would be my
option.
And... we
won a trophy! Best display out of all those at the
various stations betwixt Southport and Wigan. Would
have preferred ready cash, but never mind.
