Hilton Valley Railway 1988-2000

HILTON VALLEY RAILWAY
HILTON, NR BRIDGNORTH

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Project 50 2001-2005
2001 became a landmark year for the HVR, as this was when it was decided to undertake a historically accurate restoration of this magical miniature mainline back to its former glory. - Imitating rail sizes, rolling stock, track formations, station names—the list keeps going. This is something not seen anywhere else in the country on this gauge and will be of significant historical interest within in the field of miniature railway development. The new project began with volunteer effort. Friends joined together to get the site cleared and ready to reinstate the railway and recondition track-work and track-bed. Early in 2002 the first informal meeting of the friends occurred. The image to the lower right shows this meeting with the daffodils lighting the way and marking the track-bed. Since this first night people have helped enormously in all areas from rescuing rolling stock, constructing buildings and laying track. We all have a great time, but help is still much required on the build up to Lawn Pastures. The main purpose of these pages is for people who are interested or visited originally to and at least Get In Touch talk over their memories.

The estate is privately owned and is our family home, it is in no way a public site and visitors are strictly by invite only.

Great friend Michael Poole (Right) and your host (Left) holding up one of the
two original sign boards. They were built in Aluminium, from sides of a box
lorry! Photo - Simon Townsend

The first meeting of the informal Support Group. From left to right Arthur, Justin, Ben, Paul and Peter. Photo - Simon. Exciting times.

Friends of the HVR 2005-06
Susan & Ben Evans, Mark Carless ,William Bull , Phil Bennett,
Dave Wilcox, Daniel T R Cartwright, Ian Chisholm, Sean Higgs,
Eric Challoner, Simon Plant, Phil Ramsbottom, Andy Walton,
Peter Dawson, Mike Poole, Arthur Roberts, Justin, Michael,
Trevor Vale, Jim Betts, Steven Brookes

Want to join us? Send details to

Reinstating the railways northern terminus. (The yard)

Recreating the HVR northern area was possibly the most testing task ever likely to be faced within the reconstruction of the HVR. Due to the sheer size of the equipment, clearances, rail size and layout all became big issues. The primary one however was to keep the design as close to the original as could possibly be achieved. The drawing on the left shows the yard plan. All this now exists apart from the Traverser shed (equivalent to the HVR Rolling Stock Shed). It is hoped that funding will be found before 2006. The image below shows the buildings seen on the plan. As can be seen as this point track had yet to be laid and the turntable was still incomplete

Reinstating the Carriage Shed (50ft long 4 road = 200ft rolling stock storage.)

The footings were dug out by Simon Plant and concreted in place by Mr Moleneux. Here, Michael helps Equestrian Buildings assemble the building.

The embankment began with a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award residential project group who dug the footings for the first section shown on the picture to the left. Building contractor Mr Moleneux then building huge retaining walls to act as levels for the hundreds of tons of rubble required for infill. SAMCO NORTON LTD - a local company then took on infilling and finishing the embankment section. Samco use farm equipment to move material and hence could get material to extreme positions where road access is impossible, something that no fixed wheel lorry can do.
	The embankment was required because the original yard/terminus area have been lost. This meant a very small loss of 10m main running line! Because of flooding and security issues it was decided use this position, with work starting on clearing this site way back in 1997. The terminus run round extends to about a third of its length, giving an exciting double track section where trains will pass in the future.

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