Preparing for Re-Opening

Volunteers have been tidying up the site today ready to re-open to the public on Sunday.

03078 fired up and having its radiator topped up on the pit road.

Being used to move stock on the flat road...

...to allow Railway Manager David to rearrange this area of the apron. 

Pony shunted onto the apron for public display. 

Various components of the Sentinel that had been scattered in and around the apron have been tidied up and stacked in one corner. 

David and Michael assembling the new lamps for Middle Engine Lane platform...

...and later installing them.

    Michael D and Joe then shunted the carriages into the platform for live filming with Look North's Jim Scott, who has today been reporting on the recent track material thefts that that the railway has suffered: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crld8e53wr9o

Pony

Today we have taken delivery of Hawthorn Leslie No.2918, 'Pony'.

'Pony' was previously stored at Peak Rail in Derbyshire and has been purchased by a member of the NTSRA for restoration and use on the NTSR. 

The locomotive has local origins, being built in Newcastle in 1912 for Blyth Harbour Commission, where it was designated 'BCC No.2'. It entered preservation at the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway (where it gained the name 'Pony') and last steamed at the Chatham Dockyard Railway in 2004.