The Bluebell Railway has signed a deal with Network Rail.
The railway will benefit from the deal through the donation of redundant rail and sleepers that are no longer needed on Network Rail’s Sussex Route.
During 2025 and into 2026, Network Rail and the Bluebell Railway will work together on exhibitions at London Victoria as well as Sheffield Park station on the Bluebell Railway.
Network Rail will use the Bluebell Railway’s facilities as part of community activities such as rail experience days to promote careers in the rail industry.
The Bluebell Railway will also benefit from expertise and time, with staff being able to use volunteering leave to support maintenance and the running of the heritage line.
“Wherever we can, we will work with heritage railways across our network to forge a new partnership so that materials that would otherwise be recycled elsewhere to be re-used can find a new purpose.
Lucy McAuliffe, Network Rail’s Sussex route director
“The Bluebell Railway is delighted to enter into this Route Agreement with our friends at Network Rail. There is a great deal of scope for cooperation between the national rail network and heritage railways. This Route Agreement provides a framework for a deeper collaboration which will benefit us both.”
Neil Glaskin, Chairman of the Bluebell Railway
Responses
If Network Rail are in a new era of enlightenment, perhaps their intransigence in two examples, just off the top of my head, would be the Taunton to Bishops Lydeard link for the West Somerset Railway and the Smallbrook to St Johns Road Station access link, for the Isle of Wight Steam Railway. Both links are stalled primarily due to blinkered and expensive signalling aspects. Network Rail fail to acknowledge that for a 100 years there were no problems.