Foxfield Railway will hold a celebration of the North Staffordshire Railway over the weekend of Friday 14 to 16 July.
The weekend festival will mark one hundred years since the North Staffordshire Railway merged with the London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) Railway on 1 July 1923, and will feature Knotty coaches, so Foxfield is calling the event ‘Knotty100'.
It will include the first running of Foxfield's four-coach Victorian Heritage train, which is composed of three Knotty Coaches and the First Class Midland Railway Family Saloon No. 348 of 1884.
The recently-restored saloon will be running in public service for the first time in seventy-five years.
A packed timetable will see three steam locomotives (with a fourth locomotive yet to be confirmed) hauling seven trains per day.
Trains will run (subject to availability) at 10:00, 11:00 ,12:00, 13:00, 14:10, 15:10 and 16:10 on each day. A demonstration pre-grouping freight train will also run.
During the event, Bagnall (No. 2623/1940) Hawarden 0-4-0ST will official re-enter service after a fifteen-year restoration.
Hawarden takes its name from the works of John Summers & Sons Ltd (then its parent company): Hawarden Bridge Steelworks in Shotton, The loco spent its working life at Shelton Iron & Steel (‘Shelton Bar') before coming to Foxfield in 1973.
Foxfield's garden railway will start running as part of Knotty100, dedicated to the memory of Foxfield's late President, Brian Allen.
Foxfield's Miniature Railway will also be in operation.
In addition to railway rides, the weekend festival will also include:
- Anthony Dawson, the early railway historian and author, signing copies of a new book on the North Staffordshire Railway.
- Foxfield's bar serving a specially-brewed Knotty 100 beer
- Saturday night barbecue and live music
- children's play and activity coach
- reenactors from the Manchester Regiment in redcoats and khaki, and train crew in period uniform
- guided tours of the Foxfield Colliery on Sunday 16 July with an opportunity to handle objects and ‘meet a miner.'
Foxfield Railway is running the event in partnership with the Foxfield Railway, Brampton Museum, Knotty Coach Trust, and North Staffordshire Railway Study Group.
Event organiser Richard Warren said, “Foxfield has been revitalised since the misery of the pandemic. The magnificent efforts of our team of volunteers – working the Foxfield Magic on our locomotives, historic carriages, goods wagons, museum, miniature railway, garden railway and even the gardens themselves – will all be showcased at our Knotty100 event. Sincere thanks are due to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for helping to make this possible”.
I hope North Staffordshire No 2 will be on show as during the time it was owned by the National Coal Board at Walkden in Lancashire my late father used to drive it to bring coal from the local mines for use at Kearsley Power Station.