Amerton Railway

Amerton Railway

Amerton Railway. KS 4250 of 1922 0-4-0ST 'Lorna Doone'
Locale	England
Dates of operation	1992–Present
Track gauge	2 ft (610 mm)
Length	1 mile (1.6 km)
Headquarters	Stafford

The Amerton Railway is a 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge heritage railway in the English county of Staffordshire. It is owned by the Staffordshire Narrow Gauge Railway Society.

Construction of the railway started in 1990 in a field at the side of Amerton Working Farm. The first trains ran in 1992, but it was around 10 years later when the railway was completed as a full circle with two passing loops.

There is the main 3 road running shed housing majority of the locomotives, operational and stored, a large workshop next door where restoration and maintenance take place, then a small covered siding is located between the workshop and carriage shed.

In May 2012, the 17 acres of land on which the railway is run was purchased by the railway, securing the future of operations at Amerton.

On 10 August 2001 the railway was very fortunate to acquire the Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway/North Staffordshire Railway (The Knotty)/LMS Signal Box from Waterhouses Station. This controlled both the narrow gauge and standard gauge lines at Waterhouses. It is passed at the end of the platform and has undergone major restoration, and is now in its final stages with lever frame installed and painting on final gloss coats (Jan 2017), proved to be very popular at the 2016 steam gala when the public where allowed inside.

Recently work has started on modifying the headshunt to provide more room on the railway and an additional passing loop.

A comprehensive industrial demonstration railway is now being developed from the old phase 1 stump siding area to add a turning triangle and a large amount of outdoor storage space.

A demonstration mine and blacksmith workshop has also been constructed along with a few mine wagons to resemble an old gypsum mine that used to operate not far from where the railway is today

Rolling Stock

Restoration is in progress on a number of narrow gauge waggons. The railway owns 9 RNAD wagons. A set of 3 RNAD box vans and 6 RNAD flats. The vans and 3 flats have been regauged from 2ft 6in and to run on the line, with 1 van 3 flats been fully restored, one of these flats has been rebuilt into a ballast wagon ('Minnow') the later 3 flats had recently arrived from Chasewater Railway. The wheelsets and frames are currently separated, with the 2ft 6in wheels currently in Amerton Yard, and the frames up at 'stump siding'. These are to be fully restored when time and finances allow . 3 ex- RAF Fauld drop-side wagons have been restored and painted in RAF colours during 2016, as well as 2 ex MOD flats, one rebuilt too a short sided wagon, the other to the original MOD high end sided flats. There are 5 600mm Allen skips on the railway, they have recently been taken off from mainline running, due to skips buckets deterioration, and the wheelset 600mm gauge meaning they would derail at times. Plans are being made to regauge and replace the wheelsets to running order.