National railway club Rail Riders has raised over £2,000 for charity over the past two weekends.
On the weekend of the 10th and 11th of June, Rail Riders held its first yearly Railway Show at the Crewe Heritage Centre.
Hundreds of visitors came along to see exhibitors including model railways in the exhibition hall and outside traders alongside three visiting mainline locomotives from DRS, DB Cargo UK & Freightliner.
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Freightliners 47830 Beeching Legacy and DB Cargo 66175 Rail Riders Express took pride of place, alongside DRS 68034 which was named Rail Riders 2020 at the event by a Rail Riders club member.This was the name carried by 66303 from the 7th July 2021, however the loco was transferred to GBRf last year and the decision to transfer the name was taken.
As part of the show many visitors were able to sit in the APT P and experience the tilt of the north end vehicle at selected times over the two days. A donation bucket raised £168 to help maintain this unique set.
A raffle ran over the weekend to win a cab ride with DB Cargo, various subscriptions to model wagons from Cavalex Models to train tickets donated by various TOCs with the money raised going to the Samaritans Charity. Over the two days this amounted to over £900.
The following Saturday on the 17th June, Rail Riders attended the DB Cargo Family Day at Toton depot, where 50 of its members were invited to attend and given access to the site as well as a guided tour and complementary refreshments. The club members got to see all the locomotives at the depot including the clubs named loco 66175 and the newly repainted Coronation liveried 66023 which celebrates King Charles III coronation and a re-railing exercise.
Through ticket sales to the club members for this tour a fantastic £1,100 was raised for DB Cargos chosen charity the Samaritans.
Simon Buxton from Rail Riders said: “It’s fantastic to work with the likes of friends at DRS, Freightliner, and DB Cargo UK. We regularly have depot visits with them and in the process raising much needed funds for the various charities the company’s support. So far this year alone we have raised over £3,850 which has smashed last year’s total.
We now have reached our first big milestone of 1000 members and our depot tours a hugely popular with most selling out within minutes, It’s also nice to have two mainline locomotives on the network flying the flag for the club, especially with the newly named 68034 with is fitted with equipment to work the TransPennine Trains Ltd Mark 5a stock.
This means in time it may appear on part of the route working passenger services that the original clubs’ locos 47406 & 47488 worked while on the Liverpool to Newcastle diagrams.”
