As you may be aware, one of our missions is to encourage young people from all backgrounds and abilities to take an interest in “Heritage” – we want them to experience the thrill of visiting a Heritage Railway, to ride behind a steam loco, learn a little about the history of railways especially relating to the development of steam locomotives and see some of what is involved in maintaining and restoring steam locomotives, not least the  heritage engineering aspects.  The National Lottery Heritage Fund has included a considerable amount within our current grant to help us meet this objective.

 A big “Thank You” to Lottery Players for making this possible. 

Over the past few weeks we have work towards that objective by welcoming a number of parties of young people to the GWSR .

Most of these amazing youngsters had not travelled on a train before, let alone one hauled by a steam locomotive, the response was as you can read below, overwhelming.

Their excitement and enjoyment was rewarding in itself and many of them appeared to be wanting to return with siblings and parents in the near future, some even to get involved.

Watching them as they looked out of the windows, many asking incredibly thoughtful questions (age being no barrier to the depth of their enquiry)  has proven our mission is one of value and rewarding for all concerned.

We have also now modified our presentation based on some of the feedback and questions we have been asked.

See below the feedback from one of the groups.