In March, over 600 hundred guests were welcomed to the Derby Arena to celebrate the 21st Community Rail Awards.
There were over 300 entries for awards and we were delighted that First place in the Railways 200 Legacy category was awarded to Tyne Valley CRP for their imaginative ‘A Song for Edmondson’ project, which was funded by CrossCountry from our Community Engagement Fund. Our Managing Director, Shiona Rolfe, and Regional Stakeholder Manager, Alex Bray, were thrilled to be invited onto the stage by our Tyne Valley CRP partners when they accepted the award.
Tyne Valley CRP aspired to deliver an educational project beyond the usual ‘try the train’ trip. With Railway 200’s focus on developing skills amongst young people and celebrating railway history, the landmark year proved to be the perfect impetus. The CRP enlisted the support of singer songwriters Gareth and Bronwen Davies-Jones, who ran a series of workshops with pupils from Hallbankgate Village School and Lanercost CofE Primary School, helping them to write song lyrics featuring Brampton Station and Thomas Edmondson, its stationmaster in 1836 and pioneer of railway ticketing.
The project opened up many ‘firsts’ for the children. Through writing the lyrics, they learned important historical facts, as well as participating in an exciting sound engineering workshop, and several went on their first train journey to Haltwhistle to see the racks of Edmondson tickets in the Old Booking Hall and experience how tickets were sold in the 19th and 20th centuries. The musical workshops culminated in the premiere of the new songs, performed by the children and their teachers, at Lanercost Priory.
Not only did this project provide the young people with skills in creativity and travel confidence, it created a lasting legacy for an incredible piece of railway history to be preserved and celebrated for generations to come. Tyne Valley CRP has subsequently applied to Historic England for a blue plaque in Edmondson’s name at Brampton station and are embarking on a connected project with the local secondary school to create a piece of work commemorating Brampton’s link to Stephenson’s Rocket.
Emma Roberts, awards judge said; “A huge amount of time and effort went into this project, and seeing the children delighted with their performance was a real treat – and what I had hoped Railway 200 would do. Connecting children to their local railway history through music was inspired – and it seems they learnt a lot more too about using the railway today.”
Several Community Rail Partnerships (CRPs) which are supported by CrossCountry scooped up 2nd and 3rd place awards on the evening including Bishop Line CRP and New Forest CRP for projects involving children and young people, Gloucestershire CRP for most effective communications campaign and Tyne Valley CRP in the most enhanced spaces category showcasing Haltwhistle station.
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