Cheshire Best Kept Stations

John Hulme

Sandbach Transport Festival

The Sandbach Transport Festival was a great example of collaboration between volunteers (Friends of Sandbach Station) and Arriva ‘s Northern and North West Bus operators.

Cheshire Best Kept Stations were pleased to attend and helped to give away lots of goodies and answer questions from the public.

We were pleased to meet up with the team from Arriva North West Buses including Toby Cooper, the Engineering Manager for Winsford / Macclesfield and Matt Mort, the Operations Manager for Winsford / Macclesfield also Ciara and Andrew who are students working their placement year with rail operator Northern.

Railway Children Donation

CBKS Chair Mark Barker presents Val Brignall of Railway Children with a cheque for £150

The funds were raised at the recent Cheshire Best Kept Stations 2017 Awards Evening.

Railway Children is a Sandbach based charity that works to help street children in India, Africa and the UK.

A similar donation was made to the Northwich branch of The Samaritans.

Mark said:

“We are delighted to be able to support these charities that do an amazing job as well as showcasing the work of volunteer groups at Cheshire ‘s stations.”

2017 Awards Evening

Cheshire Best Kept Stations have announced the date of their 2017 Awards Evening.

This will be held from 7.00 pm on Thursday 23rd January 2018 at The Grange Theatre, Bradburns Lane, Hartford, Northwich.

This will be the 15th Awards Evening, which is held annually to encourage, promote and recognise the work of Station Adoption and other community groups in caring for local stations throughout the former county of Cheshire.

The evening brings together volunteers, the railway industry and civic leaders for an inspiring and enjoyable evening.

Chair of Cheshire Best Kept Stations, Mark Barker said: ” We believe that Cheshire is the only county to have a Best Kept Station competition. From the Wirral to the Pennines, and the Mersey to the Dee, there are over 100 stations, 6 Train Companies managing these stations, and 8 Boroughs in the former county. There is always keen rivalry to see which stations scoop the Awards.”

If you wish to receive an invitation to the event, please contact our Team using the Contact Page above.

John Hobbs – a true gent

In a secretive project co-ordinated by NCRUG Volunteer and Publicity Officer, Ian Whitley, with the help of the NCRUG committee, Arriva Trains Wales and many other partners a plaque to recognise the incredible contribution made by long standing member John Hobbs was unveiled at Runcorn East railway station.

Colleagues, friends and family gathered at Runcorn East to witness the unveiling.

John was modest when Mark Warren, NCRUG chairman spoke about his service and achievements praising the team but we can all agree he deserves the recognition.

Runcorn East has benefited from his passion and determination and while his biggest challenge to tackle was the restoration of regular passenger services on the Halton Curve, the station seemed the most appropriate place for the plaque.

John’s railway work is extensive. He has campaigned with NCRUG for services over the Halton curve, coordinated the adoption and projects at Runcorn East, been a working member of Cheshire Best Kept Stations and has been an active volunteer on the East Lancashire Railway both on the footplate and at an organisational level.

Sadly, John passed away on 7th September 2017.

Images courtesy North Cheshire Rail Users Group.

Annual General Meeting

The AGM of Cheshire Best Kept Stations took place on April 28th, when the following officers and committee were elected:

President: John Hulme BEM

Chair: Mark Barker

Secretary: Chris Dale

Treasurer: Steve Forde

Committee Members: Sally Buttifant, Judie Collins, John Hobbs, John Kitchen, Craig Wright

Work is already underway for the 2017 Awards and we will let you know more about them in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, we would like to give you early indication that we will be seeking nominations from volunteer and community groups for the following categories of Awards:

  • Art Projects
  • Community Involvement – work involving community engagement, campaigning, publicity, activities on your station or on trains
  • Youth Challenge – this can be for work involving schools, uniformed organisations (e.g. scouts, guides), youth groups, college students etc
  • Diversity – a new award for involving wider sections of the community, particularly those for whom use of stations and rail services may be particularly difficult

We will provide further information in the next few weeks, and would ask that you start thinking about nominating your activities that fall into these descriptions during the period 1st September 2016 to 31st August 2017.

We expect that the closing date for nominations will be in early September, and again, I will confirm this in the next few weeks.

Now that Spring is with us, no doubt you are all busy on your stations.

Please let us have pictures of the work you are doing any time from now on, and throughout the summer.