Telford Steam Railway, "merrily rotting away"

There is a pedestrian crossing point across the track between the old Station Platform and the previously mentioned abandoned wagons in Doseley, its from this point down to those wagons that the track really starts to deteriorate and as I said the sleepers are so rotten you can push your fingers into them and many of the brackets clamping the rails to the sleepers are broken as you can see from the attatched photographs.

Telford Steam Railway Trust have plans to run the line into Ironbridge, if this is what they are starting with then what time and resources they do have will be spent putting all the years of neglect right, before they can start on anything as ambitious as turning their Line to Nowhere into a Line to Somewhere






Now if you move up to the main site which is well worth giving a miss, things are poor in the extreme, the attatched photographs show the state of their site and the condition of what they have "Preserved"








A somewhat rare all wooden carriage, deteriorating so quickly now the water has got in, it will soon not be savable, I have seen one enthusiast photographing this at an open day in tears at its condition, like everything else on the site "awaiting restoration while merrily rotting away"



The above photograph of the rusting pile of metal by the side of a public path at the back of their engine shed is the chassis of a shunting engine that has been disassembled for restoration, it has been there for nearly a decade, the rest of it is lost in the undergrowth within the main site.



Just to the left of the large grey box wagon your can see the curved green boiler that belongs to the rusting chassis at the back of the engine shed, "awaiting restoration while merrily rotting away"



Just infront of the long red carriage you can make out some more green metalwork, which I believe is part of the green cab section and coal box to go with the rusting boiler and chassis, "awaiting restoration while merrily rotting away"



A bridge donated by network rail supposedly to span the Ironbridge by-pass when they run the line into Ironbridge, it will never move any further than where it is now and will eventually be scrapped. In front of the bridge there is a rather expensive looking engine removed from a diesel powered shunting engine and left to the mercy of the elements for over 18 months.




It isn't good, not at all, and this bunch carry the name of OUR TOWN, does Telford really want to be associated with this shambles, even if only by name??