Photo Gallery 2

The Steam Centre 1976-1995

Following a number of 'false starts' in various locations, the North Staffordshire Railway Society established a base at Cheddleton Station on the former Churnet Valley line of the North Staffordshire Railway in the mid 1970s. The yard was to be used as a restoration base for the Society's small collection of locos and rolling stock.

Please click on the thumbnail to view the large picture.

The first items of stock to be obtained by the NSRS were a tender for the Fowler 4F 44422, formerly in use as a water carrier at Bescot, and two BR Mark 1 corridor composite coaches. Here seen stabled in the fledgling Cheddleton Yard.

Another view of the Cheddleton site. Compare with an early 1990s view taken from a similar location here.

Cheddleton Station, headquarters of the NSRS (and of its successors, the NSRC (1978) Ltd and Churnet Valley Railway).

More stock was acquired, including Standard Class 4 80136 and ex-NCB Austerity tank No.8, and Cheddleton yard expanded gradually to fit it all in. (Compare this with a similar view taken during 1999!)

In 1982, the NSRC started giving short passenger rides in Cheddleton Yard. These were operated by the ex-NCB saddle tank, by now named "Josiah Wedgwood".

Frustration grew however as the adjacent Churnet Valley line closed, but the NSRC were still confined to the yard. The yard expanded further as more stock was acquired in anticipation of one day being able to run a railway.

Then in March 1994, the CVR's offer to purchase the line was accepted by the (then) British Rail Property Board, and work began to remodel the yard and connect it to the "main line" for the first time in some 30 years...

Photos D.Felstead/C.A. Proctor