Yes after the long hot summer autumn seems to have arrived suddenly! The 3 flower tubs on the platform have been really colourful and we thank the folk who have helped water them in dry spells, particularly Keith who does so much good work at Glossop station.
 We thank Bunty and Chris for their hard work last week changing all the floral displays in the station from summer to autumn.

 Our plans for Autumn focus on renovating the Howard Steet Garden - recent awards of money from Derbyshire's Greenwatch scheme and the 2012 ACoRP Prize money will be used to buy new plants. We have 2 sessions left in 2013 for the Embankment Garden to get it ready for winter and plant some bulbs! The primulas are flowering yet again!!

 We are continuing our efforts to get the railings replaced along Howard Street. They are 101 years old and are in a sorry state. We thank Pete for his unstinting efforts with Network Rail to get this work done.

 The two windows to be replaced with historically correct sash ones - this project to be carried out by Northern and funded by the Railway Heritage Trust, is starting to take shape.

 The storyboard project to create historical information displays at Glossop, Hadfield and Dinting stations is underway and is ongoing. Joy and Neil recently met to assess progress. HPHVCRP has given £1,000 towards costs.

  Plans for the Christmas event at Glossop Station on Sat 7th December will be considered at FOGS' Tues 24th meeting 7.30pm at the station. All are welcome to this meeting.

 FOGS' members will be attending Northern's Safety briefings in the next couple of weeks in Manchester and Neil will be going to Llanduno for the 2103 ACoRP awards on 27th September. Although we do not have any entries this year we will, of course be supporting our fellow friends' entries at Whaley Bridge and Bentham.

 On  Saturday 14th September John Kimpton, Hilary Bennett, Paul Marsh and Neil Williams from FOGS made their way to Bury for the Northern Stakeholder thank you event for volunteers. This included a lunch and free travel on the East Lancashire Steam Railway. As always Northern had pulled out the stops to make this a very congenial occasion! There was atmospheric music in the Steam musem at Bolton Street Station along with a fine spread! Visitors came from far and wide on Northern's network - one couple making a 5 hour journey from Whitehaven! Most of Northern's Managers and Senior personnel were present and it was nice to see, of course Theo and Paul along with Pete Myers, Natasha Wilding, Don Jary and Lee Wasnidge. We were impressed that Sheldon, on duty at Bury Metrolink, did a good job at identifying potential Northern attendees!
    Lee made a speech of thanks and updated the audience with Northern News. A big welcome was made of Alex Hynes, Northern's new MD of 15 days! Alex made a speech explaining his vision and his determination to travel on every Northern Line in the next few months! We were able to take a photo and have a little chat. Ah Alex said, Glossop the Teddy Bear station pointing to Theo who had done a good briefing on our behalf! Alex is very keen on using the power of the 25,000 folk tweeting Northern to enhance services. He is particularly keen to get the internal conditions of trains cleaner and a recent Email from John LeGrove to Pete Myers praising efforts to do this had reached him and had been forwarded to Managers! We wish Alex well. We also caught up with Dwayne and told him the storyboard project for Glossop, Hadfield and Dinting stations was underway! It was very well organised event and we thank Northern for it! Don, Dwayne and Sheldon were still on duty at Bury Bolton Street station after 17.00 to wish people well on their journeys home - testimony indeed to their attention to detail!

 Our sister Friends' groups at Dinting and Hadfield are busy with improvements to their stations. At Hadfield Joy and her team have been beavering away all summer on the embankment approach garden to the station. And very good it looks too! Now capped with an engraved stone to welcome travellers to Hadfield station!
   At Dinting the 2 new flower baskets put in by Alison and her team have made a welcome splash of colour. A new project to create a mosaic led by Glossop Ceramics' Artist, Adrian Holt is now underway at New Mills Spring Bank Arts' Centre working with people from various parts of the High Peak in conjunction with Alison from the EARTH project. Neil from FOGS visited the launch of this on Thursday 19th September.

 On September 8th a very rare visitor, Class 156 491, visited Glossop Station to form the delayed 10.39 service to Manchester Piccadilly. The first service had been cancelled due to overrunning engineering works at Ardwick which had affected the overhead power lines so to get the Sunday service started on the Glossop Line a diesel train was used. A Glossop Station, Graham, member of staff and Neil Williams from FOGS, were doing their best to inform passengers of a changing situation regarding the train service. Passengers were building up. The electronic screens were also down! At 10.40, much to everyone's surprise, the 156 crept in! The driver and guard were amused by passengers looking for doors that did not exist! One couple had told Neil that, for the novelty of a diesel trip they would pay double! Neil told the guard where they were sitting!! Due to the train's lateness it did not travel to/from Hadfield and left for Manchester at 10.50. Passengers sitting around tables created scenes reminiscent of the famous football charter special to Wembley in 2009! By 11.30 normal services with electric Class 323 were resumed. Did anybody take a photo?!!