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I am pleased to say that the Domain Name for this website (Bob's Railway Days on Platform 2) has been renewed until January 2019 thus this website which has now been on-line since 2000 to publicise the former Thorne Memorial Park Miniature Railway is now secure for another year. I have a busy year planned head places and railway's for myself and wife Pat to visit, plus the continued restoration of the Doncaster buses at the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft. Hopefully between the many activates I will be able to keep this website up to date. I would like to thank you for your visits to this website since 2000 and here's to 2019 .   

A visit to the Kirkless Light Railway February 2018

The Kirklees Light Railway is a 3 1⁄2-mile (5.6 km) long 15 in (381 mm) gauge minimum gauge railway in Kirklees metropolitan borough, West Yorkshire, Northern England.
First opened on 19 October 1991, the KLR runs along the trackbed of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway's now long closed/former branch line, from the village of Clayton West via Skelmanthorpe to the village Shelley Woodhouse (a few yards close to the former Clayton West Junction1⁄2 mile (0.80 km), near Shepley) on the Penistone Line from Huddersfield to Sheffield, (via Penistone and Barnsley).

We arrived as snow and hail showers were moving in off the Pennines on the 1st February 2018. Seen on the turntable. "Hawk" is their largest and most powerful engine It was completed at Clayton West in 1998 by Brian Taylor. It is based on a Kitson Meyer type engine that was built in Scotland and exported to Chile in 1903. It is an articulated engine which means it has two 0-4-0 power bogies which help it go round very tight corners.
Next to it we have the No. 2 'Badger' about to depart from Clayton West with the first train of the day. It was built by Brian Taylor in 1991 final finishing was completed in the Clayton West workshop. Badger is a 0-6-4 Saddle Tank Locomotive. That is loosely based on a famous design of contractors' locomotive which were built in large numbers and exported all over the world.

Shelley railway station in the midst a shower off the Pennines Hawk unloads its passengers. On its second trip Badger on turntable for its Return trip to Clayton West. A brief glimpse of the sun before hail and snow

After the first trip along the line it was found that one of the carriages had a steam heater fault and Jay did the honours of replacing the coach. Jay was completed in 1992 and is a diesel hydraulic engine. Although not based on a specific prototype it is similar in appearance to many industrial diesel engines. Jay is their workhorse and it is used almost every day of the year.
It is used by the engineers for maintenance trains, shunting engines and carriages, patrolling the Railway and pushing our snow plough. As a special treat it is sometimes allowed to pull passenger trains.

Very popular with the children is the Tram engine No 7 seen here returning from its duty of checking the tracks etc before the train service started. The Tram was built in 1991 by Brian Taylor to help with the construction of the Railway. Also popular with children (and adults) is the raised track miniature railway that operates most Sundays . Also very popular are the tea rooms at either end of the track as we made good use of for a very welcome hot cup of tea. 

Whilst enjoying some refreshments it is so hard to believe that once standard gauge locomotives could be seen travelling along the  track bed of this now very popular light railway. 

For further information about the history of the railway, train times fares etc  please visit their website that has a wonderful selection of photographs
https://www.kirkleeslightrailway.com/

July 14th  - July 15th 2018  70th Anniversary Weekend

Coming up this To mark the special occasion, an intensive timetable will be in operation throughout the weekend featuring residents from the railway and some very special guests, which will be announced in due course.  (Photograph to the left myself back in 1948)
At Lakeside Station, there will be children's activities, model railway layouts, a display of the CCLR's history, driver for a fiver and much more. There will also be a shuttle train operating between Lakeside and Kingsway.
Plenty of photo opportunities will be available over the weekend so make sure your cameras are fully charged!

For more information about the railway visit their website  http://www.cclr.co.uk/ 

Thorne Central publication

Between 2001-2003 I arranged for the Doncaster & District Model Engineering Society Ltd. to receive considerable funding to purchase locomotives, materials for the building of coaches and the electric locomotive John L Stokes. We were also able to purchase two marquees for shows such as the Summer Festival Event. Plastic Tables and chairs for visitors to use. Stationary, publicity leaflets and much more were obtained by funding. I would estimate about £10,000+ worth of funding was obtained with many hours of form filling producing brochures for the funders. The Neighbour Renewal Community Chest also funded this special Newsletter that was made available free at local newsagents etc. Click here to see the contents.     

Note from the webmaster

Any links to other railways or attractions are put on a voluntary basis.

Certain photographs on this web site may have the faces etc of a person or persons blurred for reasons of identity especially non-adults inline within the recommendations of the Child Protection and Vulnerable Adults Act even though I may have the permission of the person to take the photograph.

Whilst every effort is taken to ensure that links to other websites are correct, some are changed without me being informed or being aware of them.

This website has had its Domain name renewed until January 2019

For further information about this web-site e-mail the webmaster 

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Friday, 13 November 2020

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