AN exciting new narrow gauge heritage railway project is being planned for Tweeddale.
And the group behind the project is looking for volunteers to help.
For the past five years members of what is now the Tweeddale Heritage Railway Society have been quietly assembling a collection of locomotives, rolling stock and track at their yard and workshop near Broughton.
Jim O’Neil, one of the founders, said: “It all started when the successors to Messrs, William Sinclair of Leadburn decided to stop using light railways to harvest the peat on their various peatfields across southern Scotland.
“I approached them and was offered 'Christine', a derelict engine-less four-wheeled diesel locomotive.
“At that time I was a member of the Tweeddale Railway Group which, pre-pandemic met regularly at the Newlands Centre, Romanno Bridge.
“Together with a colleague, we cosmetically restored Christine and displayed her outside the Newlands Centre to advertise our annual railway exhibition there.”
Peter Graham, another co-founder of the group, said: “Since then we have re-engined, re-wired and fitted her with new hydraulics, so now, bar some tidying, she's ready to run.
“Meantime we have been adding other artefacts from wherever we could. Most of our track and some wagon bogies came from the peatfields.
“Rachel, a loco that worked alongside Christine, was repatriated from Norfolk, whilst another locomotive and more track came from Somerset.”
While all this was ongoing, the small group were also looking for a site to lay track to run their burgeoning collection.
Jim added: “We've now narrowed it down to two contenders with one looking extremely likely.
“Once the final decision is taken, we hope to call a public meeting to announce our plans, for what will be a new tourist attraction in the district. We are working closely with South of Scotland Enterprise to achieve this end.
“However what we really need now, is volunteers to help us speed up the renovation and repair of our stock so that when we do move, we can hit the ground running.”
The group have a Facebook page, “Tweeddale Heritage Railway” where they document their progress.
To get involved, email info@tweeddaleheritagerailway.co.uk, or phone Jim on 07511 733089.
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