Story Time Success!

Over 350 passengers travelled on the Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway for the Story Time with ‘Jack the Station Cat’ and ‘Edward Bear’ event over the Spring Bank Holiday.

The Railway became the Llanberis and Sittingbourne Extension Railway with Kemsley Down becoming ‘Much Purring’ to celebrate the launch of Alan Cliff’s latest children’s book ‘Jack the Station Cat and The Tail’s End Tickets’. Two locomotives operated the hourly service – Triumph hauled ‘Jacks Express’ and Melior operated ‘Edwards Express’ trains and then gave footplate rides for children at Much Purring. Even Victor ‘The Naughty Diesel Engine’ gave a few rides!

In fact, ‘Jack the Station Cat and The Tail’s End Tickets’ stars the Railway and locomotive Triumph in particular. Children were encouraged to help Jack find tickets and mice which were hidden all around the Much Purring station site. A few non-mice animals were added to throw them off the scent and almost all the animals were named after volunteers at the Railway!

The Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway was the first railway to be granted a license to hold a ‘Jack the Station Cat’ Day as a substitute for the ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ events which were too expensive and technically challenging to hold.

The Railway’s own ‘Edward Bear’ travelled on the trains to meet children and encourage them to enter a special children’s writing competition which was launched at the event.

Both series of books (‘Jack the Station Cat’ and ‘Edward Bear’) are for five to eight year olds but cat lovers will enjoy Jack’s tales which also include activity pages to enhance the reading experience and will be on sale in the Railway Shoppe for the rest of the season (subject to availability).

This was one of the most successful Spring Bank Holiday weekends since 2000 and very well received by children and parents alike.

The Railway will be holding Garden Days on Sundays 14th & 21st May which will enable visitors to see our award winning gardens in full bloom and discover the secrets of our oasis of colour in such an industrial setting.

Jack the Station Cat and Henry Mouse pose in front of Triumph, also a star of the latest book

Jack the Station Cat Event 24th June 2006 – Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria

The following is a report supplied by the Stainmore Railway Company on their first venture into a “Jack Day”:

Firstly, I thought it might be useful to give a little background to our project. Kirkby Stephen East (KSE) was a key junction on the legendary ‘Stainmore route’ constructed by the ‘South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway’. It ran from Spring Gardens Junction into Barnard Castle and then over Stainmore and down to KSE. From here the route continued to Tebay on the West Coast mainline. At KSE, there was a junction with the Eden Valley branch which ran via Appleby to Clifton Junction on the West Coast mainline with trains then continuing into Penrith.

In 1997, an essentially derelict KSE was purchased by Stainmore Properties Ltd (SPL) as the eastern terminus of a proposed preserved railway from Appleby East on the Eden Valley branch. In 2000, Stainmore Railway Company (SRC) was formed with the aim of opening a Heritage Centre and commencing railway operations. SRC currently has a 30-year lease on the building/site and planning permission has been granted, but the site is not yet formally open to the general public as approx. 4000 tonnes of material was fly-tipped on the site during the time it lay derelict. £260,000 in grant aid has been obtained from the North West Development Agency to remove this material and construct a car park – this work is due to begin in the next few weeks. Our planning permission allows SRC to hold a limited number of events on site per year – this we normally do in conjunction with other organisations e.g. Eden Classic Vehicle Group who run the Easter Classic Vehicle Rally and arrange Public Liability Insurance etc thus minimising our costs at this stage.

Earlier this year, Kirkby Stephen Town Forum approached us to see if we would be prepared to put on an event in association with their proposed ‘Mad Hatters Day’ on Saturday 24th June. This we readily agreed to do and, given the potential link between Alan Cliff and James Benning, Foreman at ‘Locks’, the Hatters, whom it is thought was the character on which Lewis Carroll based the original ‘Mad Hatter’, it seemed that a ‘Jack the Station Cat’ day was the appropriate thing to do!
A licence was duly arranged, cat costume hired, a children’s quiz, colouring competition etc organised, buffet car stocked up and then, Tuesday night before the event, the phone rang. It was Mark, one of our local volunteers in Kirkby. Bad News – the organisers had been in touch – they had just been told that they could not get public liability insurance for the event at the station! Plan B folks – two frantic days liasing with the organisers and we had arranged space for our Sales stand in the Market Square in Kirkby and for ‘Jack’ to read from the books to the local children both in the Church and surrounding cloisters where a large hat exhibition was taking place – what is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men!

On the day, everything went without a hitch. Our volunteers were out in force wearing a wide and interesting variety of hats. ‘Jack’ entertained the children (and adults) throughout the day with a series of stories from the books, the colouring competition went down well although we had to abandon the children’s quiz as this was based around the poster boards at KSE. The event helped to further raise the profile of the railway project in the town and the ‘Jack’ items, including the sale of a complete set of books to one individual, generated a very useful sum for SRC. In all, in spite of the last minute problem, a very successful day and next year we hope to have a ‘Jack’ event at KSE with the site fully open to the public.