Train Community Project

30th January 2023Lee Wilkinson

The Dales School has been featured on George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces. The show followed the conversion of our class 144 Pacer Train.

 

It took an incredible effort from school staff, particularly our amazing site manager Tom McKinnon, working through the summer holidays to get the train ready for George’s visit.

 

We were amazed when the community came together to help support the project, with the intention of helping children gain reading skills. Reading skills are so vital and are linked to developing skills to help children out of poverty.

The school received funding from the Laurel Trust and Hargreaves Foundation as well as contributions from Arnold Clark, Barbour, The Port of Blyth, RW Mann Trust and Northern Rail as well as Blyth Council contributing to the haulage cost to deliver the train to school. The project even caught the attention of Henkal, based in Hertfordshire, who donated weatherproofing products. Noel Forte and his team were regular visitors to The Dales School and carried out work on our pacer train, even a faulty compressor couldn’t stop them in their tracks.

Barry Lewis from Henkal

 

The amazing conversion of the train even comes with its own track donated by Network Rail.

Network Rail volunteers building the track.

 

It’s own train station, donated and built by the local branch of TEXO, with a lot of support from the amazing Alan Conway.

Alan Conway designing the station.

 

Wickes volunteers.

 

A ticket office built by local Blyth-based charity Blyth Man Shed and donated by Mercia as part of the Wickes Community Programme.

Blyth Man Shed.

 

The train is fitted with a fully working driving simulator to help encourage early career aspirations and to help children with sensory needs to experience the sounds and sights of the railway.  The software was kindly donated by Dovetail Games and the simulator was built by our STEM lead John Jennings.

 

Thank you to Morgan Sindall and Rachel Bateman from NCC and the police cadets for volunteering work that made it possible to move forward with the project. Thanks also to Network rail volunteers lead by Dawn Sweeting who volunteered over the summer holidays.

We can all agree the work paid off and we are very proud of our train. Next stop, funding for our STEM carriage. This will be a place to support pupils with early career aspirations linked with local businesses and also to practically learn railway safety in a joint initiative with Network Rail.

 

Thank you!

17th January 2023Lee Wilkinson
We would like to thank Christian Rowe, Claire Lemin, Nicola G and Alison Wright for their kind Christmas donations. Your support means a lot to us.

Train Christmas Blog

16th December 2022Lee Wilkinson

Northern Rail

Thank you to Northern Rail who is working with The Dales School to help the children experience train travel. The children are developing some fantastic life skills using the Northern Rail trains. We have enjoyed trips to Morpeth and Newcastle by train.

Northern rail invited The Dales School to a special Polar Express train ride on the new Northumberland Line. The children were able to meet Father Christmas on the train and also received books and chocolate from Father Christmas and his elves. Thank you so much to Marie Addison and Paul Henry for the continued support.

 

Northumberland Line Hoardings

We are very proud of the children who took part in the Northumberland line Hoardings day at Ashington Station. It was a very cold day and the children were very professional talking to the press and getting their photo taken for newspapers. We even met the leader of Northumberland County Council Mr Glen Sanderson.

The Children took part in working with a photographer called Lindsey Duncanson as part of the Northumberland line project. We are looking forward to travelling by train as the new stations will include Bedlington and Ashington, based very close to our two schools and Blyth and Ashington. The children asked some fantastic questions to Morgan Sindall who is the company building the new stations.

Some of the children have left us to go on to new schools who are displayed on the hoardings, but it was nice to look back at the fantastic time we had choosing the photographs for Lyndsey. The photographs were from a collection of old steam trains working on the Northumberland line when it was last used in the 1960s, taken by Ken Groundwater and Malcolm Dunnett. (Mr Groundwaters Dad)

This is the links to the newspapers.

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/people/northumberland-line-new-hoardings-installed-at-ashington-station-feature-children-from-the-dales-school-3955353

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/people/cuncil-leader-says-new-northumberland-line-will-end-traffic-jam-misery-for-thousands-3955470

Here are a few photos from the day.

Train Update

22nd July 2022Neil Simpson
We were invited by Northern Rail to take a ride on the new Northumberland Line. Some children were able to see their houses, we also passed the school. It was very exciting. Northern Rail handed out goody bags to all the children, with a special book included.
We had a ride on three trains in one day. It was a very busy day. We learned a lot about how to travel by train. We waited for the train at Newcastle Central station. It was very busy and we saw loads of different trains. The children are becoming very good train travelers.
The weatherproofing for the train was completed this term. Noel Forte and Barry Lewis from Henkel kindly helped to demonstrate how to apply the Weatherproofing products. We would like to thank Henkel for donating £50,000 of products to help waterproof the train. Noel and Barry have gone above and beyond to help the Dales train project, we could not thank them enough.
Noel is running the great North run in memory of his Son Luke for the charity YoungMinds. Please see the link to his just giving page
We had a visit from Neil from the Aln valley Railway. Neil helped to take out the train controls for the new driving simulator installation. Thanks for all the help Neil.
Thank you to all the help from Northern Rail, Network Rail, Henkel, Northumberland CC, The police Cadets, British volt and Morgan Sindall AECOM,Neil from the Aln Valley railway and TEXO

Train Blog

24th June 2022Neil Simpson

We have had a very busy successful July with a lot of work taking place.

Thank you to Morgan Sindall, NCC and the Cadets for helping clean the train and also for the work in the school garden. Thank you to Morgan sindall ground control for cutting back the large trees in the garden. The garden is looking amazing and the children were amazed to see how beautiful you had made it.

The Cadets worked very hard moving all the train seats from the garden as well as cleaning and mopping the train.

Thank you to everyone involved, particularly Reemer for organising the groups of volunteers, we are extremely grateful.

Train Blog

20th May 2022Neil Simpson

Two Classes went on a special visit to Aln Valley Railway. We looked at the steam engines and had a ride on their Pacer train. We looked at a viaduct built by Robert Stephenson and also sat on a Harry Potter style coach. Aln Valley have also been helping us with our Pacer train and helped by taking out the seats.

Thank you to Lesley Park for taking out the toilet on the train. This space will be converted into storage.

Train Blog

19th May 2022Neil Simpson

We had a very exciting month last April . It was our official opening for the Train station.

The children took part in the ceremony to sing a personalised song written by Sam from citizen song writers.
The station was donated and constructed by a local company called Texo. It was officially opened by the dep mayor and Alan Conway from Texo.  Thanks to all the guests who joined us to celebrate, including representatives from Morgan Sindall, Henkel and Northern rail and the Port of Blyth.

Train Blog

8th March 2022Neil Simpson
Neil from Alan Valley kindly gave up his Saturday with help from Mr Groundwater to take the seats out of the train. Thank you to Aln Valley for their commitment and work towards the Dales Train Project. We are looking forward to a trip to see Neil’s Pacer train,(Pictured below) as he has recently qualified to be a pacer train driver.
We had some BIG news from Northern Rail. We were successful in their Seedcorn Fun ding. Also a big thank you to the people who have donated on JustGiving me page.

smart

Train Update 16/02/2022

16th February 2022Lee Wilkinson

We had some special guests in school. Noel Forte and his team from Henkel came to demonstrate how to apply the weatherproofing product to the train. Henkel have kindly donated £50,000 of Weatherproofing products for the train project. This means there will be no water damage to the train. Thank you to John McCafferty, Mark Patterson, Barry Lewis.

Train Update & Justgiving

7th February 2022Lee Wilkinson

We had some great news this week, RW Mann Trust have kindly donated to the train project. Thank you so much, this will go towards developing out STEM carriage.

Also a big thank you to Mr Holmes who kindly made a donation to help. On this note we have created a ‘Just Giving’ campaign to help raise £10,000 to aid in the carriage development. If you would like to donate please go to https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/thedales-school.

Thank you to Ian Levy and the chronicle for appealing to the public to help the train project  https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/dales-school-blyth-pacer-train-22947145

We had a trip to Kirkmerrington School in County Durham. They showed us around their Class 142 Pacer train. We wish you all the best for your project. We are looking forward to Lesley visiting Blythdale to see our Train.

More exciting news to come next week.