On Saturday over 70 children with their families visited Father Christmas in the Waiting Room at Glossop Station. Due to a good tailwind from Lapland Santa arrived ahead of schedule and more children were therefore able to see him. Each child was given a personal welcome, a free gift and an opportunity for photographs.
There was a nice jolly atmosphere on the station for the whole event and people's toes were tapping throughout to the seasonal live music provided by the folk group SPINDRIFT.
Also keeping children busy was the make a Christmas tree decoration stall hosted by Andrea and Barbara. One young man touched everyone when he said I want to make a tree decoration for a train driver to say thanks! He did and the train driver proudly displayed it in his cab! Martin and Mike from Glossop Model Railway Society drew a steady stream of admirers to their snow covered interactive layout!
At around 11.20 our guest Raj Chanadarana, Business Stakeholder Manager for Northern, switched on our Christmas tree lights. He then made a short speech thanking FOGS and station staff for their work to make the station look attractive. This was followed by an unexpected Christmas present to Neil Chair of FOGS! Becky Styles, Northern's Community and Sustainability Manager, gave Neil a destination roller blind from a 323 Train! This caused a lot of smiles as Becky explained it was being given to Neil to acknowledge his and FOGS' 3 year campaign to keep the 323s with Northern and on the Glossop Line. This has now happened along with the efforts of others in particular David Brown MD of Northern. Neil liked the gift a lot and thanked Becky for obtaining it! Two refurbished 323s are now in service and Becky had asked that one be in use on Saturday. 323 238 newly outfitted in its Northern livery made a splendid sight! Thanks Becky for these special touches!
Also attending from Northern, Pam Williams our local line Manager. It was good to see Pam and share recent refurbishment work that had taken place at the station.
We would like to thank our guests for their sense of fun and the time that they gave to us and to everyone who helped with decorations and on the day. FOGS' team spirit!! And the Gating Staff for patience and help.
We would also like to thank Glossop Garden Centre for donating a lovely tree to us. And to everyone who came to the event. Your ongoing support is much appreciated. Santa left at around 12.45 with a lot of other calls to make!!

 A reminder! Father Christmas will be at Glossop Station in the Waiting Room from 11.00 to 12.45 this Saturday - the 7th. Whatever the weather Santa will greet every child and family who come to see him. A small FREE gift for every child.
 So do come along!! Live music, a model railway and tree decoration making too! The station has been fully decorated by Friends of Glossop Station with a tree kindly donated by Glossop Garden Centre.
 TWIG cafe available for refreshments.
 Hope to see you there!

We are pleased to announce that Santa will be returning to Glossop station on Saturday 7th December between 11.00 am and 12.45 pm. He will have a chat with every child and family that come to see him in the Waiting Room. Each will receive a small FREE gift!
The station will be seasonally decorated and there will be live music by popular folk group SPINDRIFT who are making a very welcome return! There will be a make your own Christmas tree decoration stall. In addition Glossop Model Railway Club will have a seasonal interactive layout on display.
The Christmas tree light switch on will be at around 11.25 and our guest this year is Raj Chandarana, Business Stakeholder Manager for Northern in this area.
Refreshments will be available at the Station cafe TWIG.
Please put this date in your diary! We look forward to welcoming you!!

The first refurbished Class 323 was in operation on the Glossop Line on Saturday November 9th. And very smart it looked too in its new Northern livery! The work has taken four months and has been carried out at Wolverton. Internally the train has had a complete repaint with new dark blue moquette seating. There is now a clear visual information system in each coach along with a new, access for all, toilet in the middle coach. Yesterday passengers were telling the guard they thought it was a new train! Unit 323/234 will be found on all routes worked by Class 323 trains. It is expected to take up to two years for the refurbishment to be completed on all 17 trains. We hope you will be able to sample the train soon and enjoy the improved ambience.

 The Waiting rooms at Glossop station are currently undergoing refurbishment by Northern. The work, approved by High Peak Borough Council, includes new disabled toilet and washbasin fittings, new flooring, new seating and replastering. All our displays as a result have been safely removed and are stored. These will return once the work is complete. We thank our artists for their patience and will extend their dates of display. 
 The disabled toilet and waiting rooms are not available whilst this work takes place. Apologies for any inconvenience. The nearest toilets are on the Market Ground, a five minute walk away and are open early morning to around 17.30. All other facilities including the Ticket Office and TWIG cafe are open as normal.
 When the work is complete we will publicise the reopening of the Waiting rooms.

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.