During the Covid Pandemic two young local rail enthusiasts Sam and Matthew, sons of a member of the West of Lancashire Community Rail Partnership, set about drawing pictures of trains they liked or had travelled on.
On Thursday 21st October 2021, Sam and Matthew along with their family, were congratulated by Community Rail Lancashire and Merseyrail for their fantastic train drawings created during the early lockdown, which have been converted into colourful Dibond panels that are now displayed on the fences at Birkdale and Hillside stations.
The family with the installed artwork and a pledge to Go Green by Train’ on Birkdale Station.
In a surprise to the family on the evening, Simon Clarke from Community Rail Lancashire presented the two boys with their own copy of the artwork on a Dibond panel for them to display at home.
Sally Ralston (Merseyrail), Caroline Holden (CRL) and Simon Clarke (CRL) with Matthew and Sam on Birkdale station with a copy of the artwork.
Marion Atkinson, Chair of the West of Lancashire Line Community Rail Partnership said; ‘It was during one of our partnership virtual meetings that their dad, mentioned that his boys had drawn lots of trains (and we mean lots) and we wanted to celebrate their achievements as the detail and variety of train types are amazing.’
Sally Ralston, Community Involvement Manager, Merseyrail said; ‘We were delighted that Matthew and Sam had drawn such wonderful train pictures, including a very detailed one of our Merseyrail trains and were delighted to have examples of their work at two of our stations. We hope this may inspire other people to get ‘Creative at Home’.
Richard Watts, Chair of Community Rail Lancashire said; ‘The colourful trains displayed were carefully selected to reflect their creative at home talents. We were delighted that there are young people loving their trains so much that they were able to draw their favourites, even at a time when they couldn’t actually travel by train. Thankfully, that’s all changed now and they are back on train rides again and we hope people will enjoy these drawings then at the stations’.
To see more Creative at Home projects visit https://communityraillancashire.co.uk/creative-at-home/