Welcome to the Friends of Reddish South Station
This site will keep you updated about the progress of the recently formed "Friends Of Reddish South Station" group that aims to tidy and maintain the little used station. Its long term aim is to fight for the introduction of a regular service to Stockport to the south and Manchester Victoria to the northwest.
Our e-mail address is haleywatch@yahoo.co.uk If you have any photos of our recent station mural unveilling , please forward them to this address and we will try to include them on our pictures page.
Jan 13th. More details of the May 5th Rail Tour.
The Mid-Cheshire Rail Users Association (MCRUA) rail tour will be hauled by a Class 66 freight locomotive which is a type very rarely used on passenger trains. This should attract the real rail enthusiasts as well as those of us who like a great day out to a nice destination. The tour starts at Chester and picks up at all the local Cheshire stations before stopping at REDDISH SOUTH at approx 08:25. Sat May 5th. The destinations are LINCOLN , WAINFLEET (for an optional brewery tour) and SKEGNESS. If you contact us at haleywatch@yahoo.co.uk we can send out an official booking form and contact details.
Dec 21st. Jeremy Vine Show Radio . See the "NEWS" section for details of National Radio coverage !
Dec 19th. Goverment epetition. Please sign our epetition in support of our campaign for proper passenger services along the line from Stockport to Manchester Victoria via Reddish South and Denton. www.e-petitions.direct.gov.uk
www.e-petitions.direct.gov.uk
Simply search on this site for Reddish South, follow the easy instructions and then confirm your e-mail address when they send you a confirmation e-mail. Simple, and THANKS for your support
Dec 16th. Christmas 2011 Folk Train. ! The first snow of the winter did not deter the 40 or so passengers on the Folk Train on Dec 16th, which is shown above. See the events page for a report about the train.
Dec 6th. See our news "News" section for news of a great railtour stopping at Reddish South in Spring 2012.
Nov 9th. ACORPs meeting House of Commons.
Dave Ashworth was our representitive at the ACORPs meeting and here is his report.
I went down to London on Virgin Trains from Stockport and then enjoyed a nice walk to Westminster in the late autumn sunshine, through Trafalgar Sq and Whitehall. The security to get in to the Houses of Parliament is incredibly tight, but was well organised and I was in and at the Members Dining room where the meeting was held within a few minutes.
It started at about 4:20pm with a short welcoming speech by MP Ben Bradshaw, who then introduced the main speaker , The Rt Hon Teresa Villiers MP, The Minister of State for Transport. To cut a long speech short , she was very enthusiastic and supportive of Community Rail projects and highlighted some of the best and most improved lines in the country to support her views. Perhaps the most famous and certainly the best in terms of passenger number improvements is the branch from Truro to Falmouth in Cornwall, where the simple addition of a passing loop along the single track line plus some funding and re-scheduling of services, has boosted passenger numbers by over 90% in a year. I have to say that Mrs Villiers came over as being really enthusiastic and I would have loved to have shown her our promotional DVD !
Then we had similar kinds of speeches from Mark Hopwood of First Great Western and Richard Alan the Area Director (north and east) for Northern Rail. Again they sounded enthusiastic and interesting, but after briefly speaking to Richard Alan of Northern Rail afterwards, who was very dismissive of our particular campaign, and I have to say was quite rude, I was not sure of his motives.
The formal part of the meeting was concluded by Neil Buxton the General manager of ACORPs, who sounded really excited that ACORPs had had a meeting in the Houses of Parliament attended by so many MPs and the Minister of State for Transport. ! We then all mingled and swopped ideas and plans and I met some very intersting members who had done some fantastic improvements to their lines and services. The best part was meeting Cyrus from The Friends of Denton Station and we both bent the ears of a nice chap from Northern Rail whos name escaped me. He was a Projects Manager at Preston and Blackpool who has done a lot of work with The Friends of Poulton-le-Fylde station to get a Station re-vamp , painting and even a new lift that has now seen a dramatic increase in passenger usage at Poulton. We have been promised a couple of free passes each for Denton and Reddish "friends" groups to go and see the improvements at Poulton-le-Fylde and to get some ideas what we could do if we got actual services. We can also meet some "Friends" from Poulton.
This chap from Northern Rail was brilliant. He actually supported our causes at Denton and Reddish, he was positive, enthusiastic and certainly not rude like his more senior Northern Rail Area Director. I gave him one of our reports and DVDs and I expect this one will actually be read and viewed ! He also promised to sign our online petition and as the number went up , I think he actually did. !
I gave out many flyers and all the reports and DVD's and most of them went down really well. Hopefully we will get some much needed publicity for the campaign. Unfortunately apart from Andrew Gwynne MP, who of course is already on our side in a big way, I did not get a chance to bend the ears of other MPs as they all had to dash out to go and vote in a division in the House when the division bells rang half way through the general chatting. However flyers have gone out to ACORPs members in Cornwall Devon Essex and Derbyshire as well as to several from unknown affiliates.
A great meeting , superb location, really nice food and drinks and even enough time to visit the actual House of Commons chamber itself .
Nov 6th See the pictures section for photos of the latest railtour to pass through Reddish South yesterday, Nov 5th.
UPDATED -News - Oct 2011 (New online petition )
The Friends group have now opened a new online government petition to try to get our passenger service requirement written into the next franchise agreement when it comes up for re-newal in 2013. Please sign this petition on the link below
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/16139
At the moment this link is not directly available from that link above but just look up "epetitions.direct.gov.uk/16139" on your server and you will see the government epetition page. Search in the box for "Reddish South" and the petition will come up, click on "view" and you can sign it there. Its a bit long winded but please try to follow it and sign it for us please.
New Station Mural unveilled by MP Andrew Gwynne.
Please see news page.
Reddish South station is presently served by the once a week "Parliamentary" train know locally as the "Ghost Train" which runs every Friday. It runs one way to Stalybridge with request stops at Reddish South and Denton. The train leaves Stockport at 09:15 and calls at Reddish South at 09:26.
The "Friends of Reddish South Station" FORSS, were founded in 2007 with a handful of supporters and now have hundreds of people who have backed our campaign for proper passenger services to Manchester Victoria.The website will aim to keep you updated about the groups progress, will include pictures of the site, details of the next meeting, events etc.
As a local resident and commuter I know that the Reddish, Gorton and Hyde road corridors are becoming increasingly congested we need to be thinking about alternative modes of transport to Stockport and Manchester.
Ultimately the group fully supports the full re-opening of line with a decent timetable to Stockport and Manchester. It also wants to tidy the station and provide South Reddish with a tidy and maintained station.
Please keep checking the site for further updates.
Thanks
Jon Ashworth & Dave Ashworth (e-mail address is haleywatch@yahoo.co.uk)