At this year's ACoRP Community Rail Awards held at the Telford International Centre in Shropshire on Thursday 3rd October we were delighted to be awarded a PLATINUM certificate of excellence in the It's Your Station category for our environmental and community work. This is a new level in the competition higher than the gold we won last year! Only 4 station friends groups in the UK reached this level - ourselves, Buxton, Hindley and Mytholmroyd. Hindley was given the lead award at this level - a thoroughly deserved win! We send our congratulations to Sheila and Sandy at Hindley - a station well worth taking a trip to. It was with real pleasure that we joined Buxton for shared photos. Dave and Sue Carlisle share the same pride in Buxton that we have in our station and its environment.
Also gaining success locally were Friends of Rose Hill with a first prize for their Inter Generational Community Art project - on display outside the station. Our congratulations to Rachel, Brian, Craig and team.
Mytholmroyd was awarded for making an outstanding contribution to Community Rail. Again anyone who has visited this station will see why!! Well done to Sue and Geoff who spearhead the work there.
It was a lovely evening - our thanks to Hazel, Dawn and the team at ACoRP for all the hard work in dealing with over 400 guests.
Our thanks also to Carolyn Watson and Becky Stiles at Northern for their ongoing support and hospitality on the night. Much, much appreciated!!

The latest Poetry Platform display is launched this week featuring poems and extracts from works by G K Chesterton, Emily Brontë, Rupert Brooke and other less familiar names. The theme of the display focuses on places around the country which have inspired or influenced the writers for their poetry. Take a look at the display at the station and also pick up a leaflet which gives more background to the poems and their authors as well as including some of the full works from which the extracts have been taken.

Our very special friends, the Lowestoft Evacuees, will again be visiting Glossop this week. They will be in Glossop from the 2nd to 6th September. As in previous trips they will be visiting people and places that have particular memories. One such place is of course Glossop Station where over 600 children arrived from Lowestoft on June 2nd 1940. All were found homes in Glossopdale. (For more information on the evacuation please go to the dedicated pages on our site)
As always the group of evacuees will be led by Chris Brooks, the indefatigable secretary of The Lowestoft Evacuation Committee.
It is planned that the evacuees will be at Glossop Station on Wednesday 4th September at around 11am. Anybody wishing to join us is most welcome! We wish our Lowestoft friends a very happy visit.

We are delighted that the popular Class 323 trains serving the Glossop line and other local lines are to remain with Northern. Their future has for some time been uncertain as they did not part form part of Arriva North's franchise. For the Glossop line and its rising gradient they are ideal trains combining swift acceleration with good seating capacity. We have been promoting their retention for two years.
Northern has recently announced that it will retain its 17 trains and take at least 17 323s from the West Midlands when these become available (West Midlands currently operate the other 26 323 trains). A programme of refurbishment is now underway. The trains will receive electronic train information, a new disability compliant toilet and refurbished seating. They will also be painted externally in the current Northern by Arriva livery.
FOGS would like to thank the High Peak and Hope Valley Community Rail Partnership for its support over this issue. Thanks also to Becky Styles Community and Sustainability Manager at Northern and her assistant Lily for keeping us up to date on news! And to David Brown, Northern MD, for his interest in these trains and his communication with us. Much appreciated.
The first Northern Class 323 is currently at Wolverton Works undergoing refurbishment.

We welcome back Glossop Arts Project to our Waiting Room Art Gallery. The art work on show has been created in Wellbeing sessions using printmaking processes and painting to various types of music. Skill sharing amongst participants encourages new ways to be creative.

Further details about the art work or the sessions can be found at
glossopartsproject.org or by contacting Sonja on 07855 320179
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Glossop Arts Project has recently received funding from Derbyshire County Council Public Health's initiative Five Ways to Wellbeing.

FoGS Poetry Platform continues to be ever more popular and attracting interest and attention of the many travellers using the station.
One keen supporter is Derbyshire County Councillor Jean Wharmby who recently visited the station to present Neil Williams, Chair of the Friends group, with a cheque on behalf of DCC, to help support and fund the work involved in creating the displays.
A new themed display, Places in Poetry, is currently in the process of being designed and will be on show very soon. FoGS gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance given by Derbyshire County Council towards this display.

"Come rain or shine" was the order of the day on Saturday 15 June as the friends groups at Glossop, Hadfield, Hattersley and Guide Bridge held their Teddy Bears Picnic event on their stations and trains.
Postman Pat was the undoubted star of the event. He set off accompanied by his loyal companion Barry from Guide Bridge to visit Hattersley where a busy scene awaited. Here Babs had organised a small supervised bouncy castle, various games and a tombola to keep visitors busy. There was between the stations A Hunt the Teddy Bear Trail with some topical names to track down! Thanks to Paul Marsh for organising this and for also creating the eye catching posters.
All the stations had a colouring competition sponsored by Northern with a travel prize available for entrants. FREE TRAIN TRAVEL, kindly offered by Northern to teddies, their owners and accompanying families for the duration of the event, proved very popular.
Many first time travellers used the trains and stations one, observing the buffer stops at Glossop, asked "How exactly does this train now get to Hadfield?"!! A little local railway geography lesson!
Fortunately it stayed dry throughout the event allowing visitors to move freely. Welcome tables were provided at each station: at Glossop a whole array of soft toys made for a colourful scene whilst at Hadfield Joy was busy with the colouring competition. Guide Bridge offered hot drinks and Glossop free orange drinks supplied with the kind support of TWIG station cafe.
Around sixty to seventy families took part and we appreciate their support and enthusiasm! It is fun to be part of this event and also see the waves and smiles from the drivers and guards! Our thanks to them for joining in!
Thanks also to Becky Styles, Community and Sustainability Manager at Northern, for arranging the free travel, the colouring competition and full size promotional posters. After competing in a nearby marathon Becky just managed to catch the last half hour of the event at Glossop. We also appreciated the support and good wishes from our new Northern Line Manager, Pam Williams.

Thursday 11th April saw the national launch of ACoRP's new report THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY RAIL. Members of FOGS welcomed Jools Townsend Chief Executive of ACoRP, Nik Schofield Communications and Marketing Manager and Rob Lowson author of the report to the station. With glorious sunshine providing a bright backdrop to the photos Jools, a first time visitor, was then shown around the features of our station  including the new moon themed Poetry Platform display, the Lowestoft commemoration and an explanation of the historic links to the past and the Dukes of Norfolk. Nik had a similar tour earlier in the afternoon.
The report, commissioned by ACoRP in response to the Department for Transport's new Community Rail Strategy, shows the economic, social and environmental qualities of community rail with extensive evidence collated by Rob from rail volunteer groups and community rail partnerships across the UK. Headlines include over 8,500 community rail volunteers giving 390,000 hours annually to their stations and local lines with an economic value of £5.6M. Between 2017 and 2018 passenger numbers on lines with community rail partnerships increased by 42% compared to a 35% rise on those without partnerships. This excellent report should prove invaluable to all those involved in community rail! An online copy can be downloaded here by using this link. Hard copies will be available from ACoRP's Huddersfield HQ after Easter - contact Rob Lowson.
Our thanks to Mike and his Staff at TWIG Station cafe for their attentive hospitality and to Nik and Rob for providing refreshments for FOGS. A big thank you also to our guests Jools, Nik and Rob - a most enjoyable occasion! We wish the report every success.