Well we are part way through our Santa Specials season, the first weekend was delightful as always – we get such lovely visitors – you are a joy to welcome to our railway and thank you so much for supporting us!

Santa returns to his grotto on Sunday 17th December and stays there until Saturday 23rd (we do let him out occasionally!).  Our Christmas Pudding hunt was a great success, but we’d love to have some more entries before judging the results and awarding the prize of a Family Ticket to the lucky winner.  And on Sunday 17th in the afternoon we have the Pheonix Singers from St Ives coming to entertain us with festive songs and carols – a first for us – we are so excited!

 

If you want to come along for a train ride just turn up as always – but if you want to see Santa please book in advance by emailing us at info@helstonrailway.co.uk, ringing us on 07901 977 597 or you could message us on our Facebook page.

Other news – we have a pagoda at Truthall Halt – another milestone for us.  This has been gestating for quite a while – we used the original GWR plans to get the component parts fabricated and then set about putting it together.

The last bit, transporting it to our newly built Truthall Halt, was helped by Carn View Commercials who lifted the body first and then the roof into position.  The pictures below show the new pagoda in position and a similar view of the original in 1920.

Whats left to do now?  Well we have a bit more work on the platform to finish off and as you can see some tidying up – we also need to install the palisade fencing along the road boundary.  And the pagoda roof capping and guttering needs to be installed .  But we are almost there….

What else – oh yes – William Murdoch’s refurbished boiler has returned and work is underway to put it back together again, we now have her undercover so that we can continue to work on her even when it is tipping down with rain – well it is Cornwall!

The Diesel Shunter has some new brakes and we are taking the 117 coach apart and refurbishing it so she can run next year in service.  Part of this will involve refurbishing the seating and to do this we have created a workshop in one of our newly donated containers from Great Western Railway (thank you) and a sewing party is recovering the seats.

It’s all go as usual!  Plus a reminder to members that your raffle tickets need to be returned if you are to enter our Annual Draw with the first prize of two first class GWR return tickets.  We also have the tickets on sale in the shop during the Santa Specials.  Counterfoils must be with us by next Wednesday (21st December) to be included in the draw.  Results will be announced on the website.