News
Kevin Collins
It is with regret that we advise Kevin Collins, a member of the stations staff team at Rawtenstall, died peacefully at home in Southport on 3rd June 2019.
Kevin's funeral, a celebration of his life, is on Tuesday 18th June at 2.40pm at Southport Crematorium Southport Rd PR8 5JQ, and then afterwards at The Masonic Hall Duke Street Southport. No flowers, donations on the day to the RNLI, or charity of your choice.
D832 - celebrating 40 years in preservation
Saturday 1st June, was the 40th Anniversary of D832 Onslaught moving into preservation. Pictured are some of the people who have been involved past and present and have helped to keep 'Beefy' going all these years. Hats off to all of them and to all the ones not featured here. Some have been there from the very beginning.
The Warships had a very short life in traffic, D832 was no exception seeing under 12 years service being withdrawn in December 1972. Onslaught is one of the original diesel locos based at Bury in the very early days of the ELR. D832 is part of the Bury Hydraulic Group fleet.
D832 arrived back at Bury on the 22nd of June 2016, having enjoyed several years holiday at the West Somerset Railway where she was repainted into BR Green livery. Onslaught returned to ELR service at the 2016 Summer Diesel Gala.
ELR's latest mainline steam driver
Congratulations to Jonathan Valentine for becoming the latest ELR mainline steam driver. Well done and well earned. He's seen here with Traction Inspector, Garry Laxton and Passed Cleaner, Mark Crompton after having successfully completed his assessment. Jonathan has been in the steam department for over 11 years.
Filming the ELR at work -- a ten-part documentary
The ELR has been invited to take part in the filming of a ten-part documentary illustrating the life and work of four heritage railways.
UKTV will be creating the series for broadcasting on their Yesterday Channel.
They are sending a two-person crew and are keen to showcase our people, events of interest and overall to show heritage in a positive light.
Depending on our programme of work, filming will take place two days a week throughout the summer season until the end of August and will involve a lot of input from railway staff.
ELR Volunteers Champions Launched
The much-anticipated launch of a new ELR Volunteers Champions Group took place recently. The idea for the group came from a suggestion made at the ELR Annual Open Forum in November 2018.