Colne Valley Railway News

A crew spent two days on site this week filming a documentary  (unfortunately can't say what) Interesting seeing the carriages go under cover, and the attention to detail was superb. WD190 in the evening - this was a static shoot, staged mainly for the steam and very effective it was too.

Following fears that the Colne Valley Railway would have to leave its site at Castle Hedingham, we can announce that we have been successful in purchasing the current site with the help of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant and our future is now secure.  This also enables us to construct better facilities such as a new entrance & reception buildings, interpretation centre and workshops We are preparing for our first Santa Specials this weekend and will be  releasing further information about these enhancements in the new year 

  Essex Fire Service held a training exercise one evening.  A fire was staged in the sleeping car, complete with bodies and there were live victims in another train. Appliances attended from Sible Hedingham, Wethersfield, Halstead and Thaxted

Some of the Thurrock Courts Players paid a visit today for a photo-shoot to promote their production of The Ghost Train by Arnold Ridley

The HCT has been in use today, a great help in reaching the overhanging trees.

We've had two weekends of fun with Thomas and his friends, the weather could have been kinder  but lots of excited children came along. We had Thomas, Daisy and Mavis on the main line, Toby on the miniature railway and several characters on the garden and model railways

  One of our volunteers has purchased this brake van and has spent several hours repairing and painting it. The steam crew had a surprise one morning, during the week WD190 had been unused and a blackbird had found a way in and made a nest. Unfortunately it had to be removed so we could use the loco, thanks to Chris who took the photo before he very carefully removed the nest (luckily there were no eggs)