CRL - Community Rail Lancashire

News
More CRDF Success For CRL Projects

Community Rail Lancashire (CRL) has just found out that it has been successful in two bids into the Community Rail Network’s Community Rail Development Fund (CRDF) for projects that will be undertaken in 2025 to help celebrate Railway 200.

The two successful projects are 200 Stories of Railway Pride (£5724) and English Queen (£2124). Details of each project can be found below:

200 Stories of Railway Pride

Following on from the success of 100 Women, 100 Journeys (100 women 100 Journeys (fliphtml5.com)) and 100 More Women, 100 More Journeys (100 more women, 100 more journeys (fliphtml5.com)) CRL is looking to create a new anthology of stories from staff members and passengers from the LGBTQ+ community and allies.  The gathering of stories will strive to achieve a number of objectives.

To demonstrate that the railway industry has many roles occupied by staff who identify as LGBTQ+, to show how the railway is an inclusive environment where staff can bring their whole self to work. It will contain stories from staff who do a variety of different roles from entry level to manager directors to show the full range of jobs available in the industry and to give passengers an opportunity to share different types of experiences of rail travel both positive and negative. This will result in the opportunity to distribute the books under the Railway 200 banner at celebration events.

English Queens Project

This will be a collaborative project that involves Community Rail Lancashire, Lancashire Archives and the Preston Station Community Champion team. The project’s aim is to deliver a series of immersive workshop sessions for primary school groups that involves storytelling and practical activities that celebrates the introduction of electrification to the West Coast Main Line, opened at Preston Railway Station by Queen Elizabeth II 50 years ago, as well as promoting present-day green travel.

The pupils (Years 3 & 4) will have a facilitated tour of Preston Railway Station before walking to the Lancashire Archives where they will be taken on a journey through the age of steam travel to the greener electrified lines and beyond to even greener alternatives. As well as introducing the children to rail and rail safety, they will gain a better understanding of the impact of the electrification of the line. Both in terms of creating a cleaner, greener and healthier environment for passengers and staff and enabling more frequent and faster services to operate due to the unique tilt mechanism. This will give us an important chance to encourage the children to make positive green travel choices when they are older.

These sessions connect perfectly with the celebrations of Railway 200 and the progress being made to develop the greenest, cleanest rail network possible.

The Community Rail Development Fund is a source of funding from the Department for Transport and managed by the Community Rail Network and is available to accredited CRPs to further develop community rail across the country.