Category: News

The Corris Railway, in common with all other UK organisations and businesses, is monitoring the rapidly evolving situation and following the Government’s guidelines on the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak.

The health and safety of our visitors and volunteers is paramount to us, and in light of the statements given by the Prime Minister on Monday 16th March and subsequently on Monday 23rd March we have taken the difficult decision to close the railway until at least Friday 8th May.

We will continue to monitor the situation based on the changing advice from government and health authorities and will issue an update if the current situation changes.

Richard Hamilton-Foyn
Chairman, The Corris Railway Society.

Having announced in November 2019 a target of £44,000 to complete work on the motion of its new steam locomotive, “Falcon” No. 10, the Corris Railway has seen a very gratifying level of support. £30,000 is now to hand and committed to allow construction to continue at the workshops of Alan Keef Ltd near Ross-on-Wye.

Construction of the engine has, amongst other work on the “bottom half”, seen the trailing pony truck put in place making No. 10 into an 0-4-2 for the first time.

Commenting on the project Andy Cooper of the Corris Railway Society said:

We are very grateful to everyone who has made a donation towards the target of having the driving wheels and motion being moved by compressed air at Keef’s Open Day in September. There have been a number of one off donations, some very generous indeed, many Society members paid “extra” when renewing their memberships and we have a steady cash flow from standing order payments. £14,000 remains to be raised to reach our target but if we can get there in the next few months we will be a major step along our way to having two steam engines based on the Corris for the first time since 1948.

Donations towards the “Falcon” can be made online at www.corris.co.uk or cheques payable to Corris Railway can be sent to Peter Guest, 38 Underwood Close, Callow Hill, Redditch, B97 5YS. Peter can also supply details of regular payments by standing order and anyone able to pay £20 or more a month for 30 months will receive a limited edition print of No. 10 by Jonathan Clay.

A quarter of a century has now passed since the Corris Railway Society held its first Model Railway Exhibition in the school at Corris itself. In 2020 the venue will be Y Plas in Machynlleth and the exhibition will take place on August Bank Holiday Saturday and Sunday, the 29th and 30th.

Current exhibition organiser Bill Newton, who has held the reins for the last 15 years after taking over from Steve Parr, took up the story.

“As with many events it doesn’t feel like 25 years have gone by since the Corris Railway Society first staged what was then a Model Railway and Toy Exhibition, but time must be going by quickly when we’re enjoying ourselves! The show has been staged in a number of venues down the years but Y Plas is very suitable for a medium sized (12 to 15 layouts plus sales stands is our usual line-up) exhibition and is handily placed with car parking nearby. We have cut back from a 3 day event to 2 in recent years and profits go towards the revival of the Corris Railway itself”.

Bill continued

“Recent MRE’s have featured at least one layout where children can have a try at controlling the trains which may introduce them to the railway modelling hobby. We have also featured smaller sized layouts which can be fitted into modern, less spacious housing. And if there can be quite a lot of narrow gauge layouts, well the Corris Railway is the oldest narrow gauge railway in Mid Wales so that is where our Society’s members interests lie”.

More information about the Exhibition can be obtained by emailing enquiries@corris.co.uk