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Appeal for Memorabilia to Celebrate Lost Railway Lines

The Museum of St Albans is planning an autumn exhibition to commemorate and celebrate former railway lines in Hertfordshire and is appealing to residents to share their memories and old photographs of these tracks.

The Lost Rails exhibition will, in particular, focus on six branch lines: the Ayot Greenway, Alban Way, Nickey Line, Ebury Way, Cole Green Way and Buntingford Line. Some of these ‘Lost Rails’ are now being used for cycleways, footpaths and bridleways.

The museum is interested in hearing from anyone who has memories of these former railway lines that date back to when they were still in operation or relate to their current use. It is particularly interested in talking to people who worked on the lines, used them to travel to work, lived alongside them, or who can recall any interesting incidents that occurred on them. In addition, it would like to hear from anyone who is able to provide photographs or other objects associated with these lines to the museum on a temporary basis for the exhibition. 

Anyone who is able to help to contribute to the exhibition should contact Rosalyn Goulding on 01727 819581 or at ros.goulding@stalbans.gov.uk, or The Museum of St Albans, 9a Hatfield Road, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3RR.

Originally planned for 2009, the Lost Rails exhibition is due to be held from September 2010 at the Museum of St Albans as part of a Heritage Lottery Funded Project and in partnership with Groundwork Hertfordshire.

SUMMARY:

Despite continuing use of the officially ‘closed’ Park Hill steps by local residents and Nickey Line users, the formal stance of St Albans District Council appears to be that there is no need to replace them. We have still not received a requested more definite estimate of the replacement cost of the steps to help us seek external funding for this.

We are very pleased that both Harpenden Town Council and St Albans District Council are very supportive of the Nickey Line generally - but we believe in this case St Albans District Councillors need to reconsider their stance on co-operation with their taxpayers (and us!) and stop being what looks like deliberately obstructive.

PETITION PROGRESS:

Despite closing the petition early to submit it for the council planning cycle, we had over 400 signatories for Harpenden Town Council and St Albans District Council to support the restoration of the Park Hill steps. We received strong support from Harpenden Town Council and District Councillors. ***Our thanks go to all concerned.***

We presented the petition to both councils in live session.  

Unfortunately, St Albans based Councillor Sheila Burton (who has responsibility for parks and open spaces including the Nickey Line) has decided not to support the restoration as in her view they apparently are not really required and not important enough to justify Council funding. Nor has she yet responded to our repeated requests and even formal questions in chamber from Harpenden District Councillor Bert Pawle on co-operation from the Council for us to obtain external funding.

Despite acknowledged continuing use of the officially ‘closed’ steps by local residents and Nickey Line users, Councillor Burton is giving the unfortunate impression she knows better than Harpenden taxpayers and active Nickey Line users what Harpenden people want or should be allowed to have.

We have again asked her pointedly for Council cooperation on obtaining external funding to meet the obvious local demand for restoration whilst avoiding the need for St Albans Council funding.  At the time of writing this, she has yet to reply.

We shall keep you informed with updates on this website.

For those of you who want to approach Councillor Burton direct, her email address appears on the Council website and is cllr.s.burton@stalbans.gov.uk .  (***Please check our own website first for updates*** and copy your email to us for information at friends@nickeyline.org. Thanks! )

NB Our petition asked for council support, not necessarily funding – the wording was:

“We call upon Harpenden Town Council and St Albans District Council to support the restoration of the Park Hill, Harpenden access steps to the Nickey Line to provide better and safer access for

·  Nickey Line local users and those visitors using the Luton Road bus services 

·  Pedestrians using the Eastern end of the Nickey Line to/from the Luton Road bus services, the shopping parade and the pub on the western side of the A1081.”

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