CARRIAGE SHED FOR ALN VALLEY
Northumberland County Council has granted planning permission for a carriage shed at the
Aln Valley Railway’s Alnwick Lionheart headquarters.
To be 100 feet long with two roads and inspection pits, the shed will allow two coaches, or one coach and two or three wagons, to be worked on simultaneously. Until now, all carriage and wagon restoration at the AVR has been done outside or, when space permitted, in the locomotive shed.
The building will also have a mobile platform adjacent to one line, allowing work to take place at solebar level and, in the future, a mezzanine platform will be built to allow an overall view of work in progress. The full details and cost of the project are still to be assessed.
AVR volunteers are close to completing the restoration of NER directors’ saloon No. 41, with painting of the 1896-built coach nearly finished and the interior also well advanced. In addition, LMS BG No. M31407 is being fitted out as a ticket office and waiting room for the new Greenrigg Halt terminus, and work has commenced on a heavy overhaul of BR Mk 1 SK
No. 25032, acquired from the Weardale Railway in 2018.
●● For more on the AVR, see our interview with its long-serving ex-BR driver Ken Middlemist on pages 64-70.