South Tynedale Railway

The narrow-gauge railway line is built on the track bed of the southern section of the former Alston Line, a standard gauge branch line between and which was closed by British Rail in May 1976. ==Operations==

The railway is operated by a charity, The South Tynedale Railway Preservation Society, which was registered in 1983. The STR is built on the southern section of the trackbed of the disused standard gauge Haltwhistle to Alston Branch Line, which formerly connected with the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway at . The popular South Tyne Trail shares the trackbed with the railway, fenced off for safety. It is a walking and cycle trail that provides a cut-off for part of its length for the Pennine Way national trail. The standard gauge branch line was closed by British Rail on 1 May 1976. The track bed is mostly intact, except at Lambley, where the station house and garden are in private ownership, and near Haltwhistle, where construction of the A69 Haltwhistle by-pass road severed the trackbed on the bypass itself and on an adjoining secondary road. The Society hope to eventually reopen the branch all the way to Haltwhistle. ==Signalling Infrastructure==

The signal box at Alston was dismantled when British Rail closed the branch so a new box had to be sought and erected. The replacement signal box at Alston formerly stood at Ainderby, on the branch line to Redmire, prior to being acquired from British Rail and re-erected on a new brick base. The level crossing barriers and mechanism came from the now-closed on the Newcastle and Carlisle line. The signal box houses a 21 lever frame, made by McKenzie and Holland. In addition there is a manually operated gate machine to control the level crossing barriers – this combination of manual gate wheel and lifting barriers (rather than gates) being somewhat rare in the UK. The frame has had a varied life as it was constructed for the Highland Railway by McK&H and first installed at Kingussie in Scotland. It was removed in 1926 when a replacement level crossing mechanism was installed in an emergency. The frame had developed a crack and had to be sent to England to be repaired by Westinghouse, which had taken over McKenzie and Holland in 1920. The frame was then installed on the North Staffordshire Section of the LMS when a road at a level crossing was realigned to cross the railway. The old frame with the gate mechanism at this box was inadequate because of worn bearings so the repaired spare frame from Kingussie was installed by Westinghouse. It remained in service until the NS signal box closed. The frame was then sold to the South Tynedale railway and installed at its present location. The signals are standard BR ones using a former LMS design, although the signal to the carriage sidings is an unusual semaphore ground signal mounted onto a conventional signal post. ==Developments==

Confirmation was received in November 2009 that a grant of £100,000 had been awarded by the Groundwork UK Community Spaces programme which will be used to fund the restoration of three historic railway bridges on the former Haltwhistle to Alston line. Northumberland County Council's west area committee also granted consent for a completely new station at Lintley and the new extension to Lintley opened to traffic on 1 April 2012. At the Annual General Meeting in November 2013 the railway society's chairman signed agreements that handed responsibility for the viaducts at Lambley and Haltwhistle to the society. They were formerly owned by the now defunct North Pennine Heritage Trust. This important acquisition lays down further building blocks towards the society's aim to eventually reopen the full length of the branch line. On 4 February 2014 the STR announced a £5.5 million development project that includes just over £4.2 million awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.(source HLF and STR press information releases). 2020 closure and administration The railway did not operate at all during 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and in September 2020 the operating company, South Tynedale Railway Ltd, went into administration. The attraction was awarded emergency funding from the Government, and resumed operations in July 2021, initially at weekends only. ==Stations==

Steam • Nakło – Polish built No. 10 of 1957 – undergoing overhaul. Side tanks and a new boiler have been constructed as part of the overhaul. Forecast for completion later in 2020. • Green Dragon – Hunslet No. 16 of 1937 – in ticket and operational, restoration completed in 2018. • Barber – Thomas Green & Son No. 441 of 1908 – in ticket and operational, restoration completed in 2015. Diesel • Naworth Hudswell Clarke No. 4 of 1952 – operational. • Hunslet No. 9 of 1952 – operational. • Cumbria Hunslet No. 11 of 1967 – operational. • Old Rusty Hudswell Clarke No. 18 of 1961 – operational. Battery • Carlisle Clayton No 21 – operational. • Newcastle Clayton No 22 – operational. Former locomotives • Thomas Edmondson – Henschel No. 6 of 1918 – (Returned to Germany) • MLR Class ML 740 – Orenstein & Koppel No. 2343 of 1907 – Moved to Darnell Locomotive and Railway Heritage Group. • NG25 Baguley-Drewry No. 3704 of 1973 – Not on railway website. ==Passenger rolling stock==

Trains are made up daily depending on predicted passenger numbers. There are four all-steel open-ended gallery coaches built by a contractor in Alston, two wooden-bodied coaches and two brake vans constructed in the railway workshops. Additions to the fleet in 2011 were an all-steel buffet coach, originally built by Gloucester Carriage and Wagon for Sierra Leone Railways, and re-gauged from to for use at Alston, and a re-gauged former Romanian steel coach now converted to be fully accessible for disabled passengers. == References ==