LEEK BACK ON LINE FOR NEXT YEAR!
In issue 254, Heritage Railway highlighted the Churnet Valley Railway as it geared up to begin its long-hoped-for extension to Leek. The European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development had provided £1,427,906.83 of funding and the first 200 yards of track was being laid thanks to a grant from Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, with the majority of the work expected to commence in 2020.
Fast-forward to June 2022 and the work has yet to be completed, although the reason for the delay needs no explanation. Not once, but twice, the CVR was all set to begin construction when nationwide lockdowns put the brakes on and the whole process was halted.
Work finally commenced in earnest in January and is on track to be finished by November, thanks to a profitable Polar Express season last year and the receipt of some sizeable donations. The CVR is using local contractor Moss Civil Engineering, from nearby Newcastle-under-Lyme.
The extension is part of the district council’s regeneration plans and will be part of a big development that sees rundown factories (and a sprawling area of land currently used as a resting place for skips and unwanted industrial equipment) replaced with houses, a new Leek station building for the CVR, and an accompanying car park. A Morrisons supermarket now sits atop the original Leek station site, but the replacement terminus will be only a quarter of a mile away.
Leek’s wealth of independent shops, markets, and award-winning cafés made the decision to extend a no-brainer, and the railway hopes that it will increase visitor numbers while also offering visitors a rare thing on a heritage railway – the option to travel along different routes on the line.
The Knotty
The CVR was originally part of the North Staffordshire Railway or the Knotty (so named because of the knot across the NSR crest), and was part of a local network constructed in the mid-1800s. The CVR largely followed the course of the River Churnet and ran from Macclesfield to Uttoxeter, carrying passenger and freight traffic.
In 1923 it fell under the
