Last year, marked 200 years since the start of modern railways.  Throughout 2025, resources were added to the Railway 200 website and now it’s joining Shakespeare and the Domesday Book in the National Archives!

On 27 September (during Goosfest, our annual village Arts and Music Festival), Friends of Goostrey Station (FoGS) celebrated the anniversary of the journey of Locomotion 1 on the Stockton to Darlington Railway. We planted an apple tree and buried a time capsule in the grounds of Goostrey station.  We also designed eight boards about the history of our station. As well as buildings, we included trains, signal boxes, sidings, railway cottages and former employees like Christopher Ashmore and Joseph Harrop (who both worked as porters and signalmen on the Crewe-Manchester line), and engineers like George Buck and William Baker (who masterminded the Birmingham to Manchester railway).

Our photo above shows Joseph Harrop (left) sitting on a bench at Goostrey station

A few weeks later we were delighted to be invited to contribute to the Railway 200 website. Great Rail Tales covers all aspects of railway life – past, present and future. Our tale remembers Joseph Harrop who worked at Goostrey Station for over half a century.

You can listen here : www.railway200.co.uk/stories/great-rail-tales/

FoGS are immensely proud that a story from our multi-award winning village station is being preserved for future generations in the UK’s official archive.