Mid-Norfolk Railway announces its busiest ever year in 2012

charities / Events in Norfolk and Suffolk November 23, 2011

The Mid-Norfolk Railway is pleased to announce a bumper line up of events for 2012. Following on from the successes of 2011 with the first ever steam gala, the MNR plans a recession-busting season with a number of new events as well as those which the railway is now renowned for.

No month is left untouched with the first event kicking off the running season in February with the mixed traffic weekend on the 18th and 19th. The Spring Diesel Gala will be a 3-day event running from Friday 30th March to Sunday April 1st. The MNR’s extensive home fleet gala will be in operation along with several visiting locomotives including a Class 55 Deltic.

A new event and one that few railways could pull off due to the location and the locomotives required is the Stratford Depot Weekend. The MNR is home to several former Stratford machines including 31s, 37s and 47s along with a number of former Stratford staff. This weekend will be celebrated with a re-union of former Stratford depot workers as well as the use of Stratford Celebrity locomotives. This event will run from Friday May 5th – Sunday 7th.

May 19th and 20th sees the repeat of the popular Southern Gala weekend. Our class 50 ‘Ramillies’ will be in traffic along with the 73 and 3-CIG as well as perhaps a special visitor.

June 23rd and 24th sees the 1960s weekend which is the precursor to our 2nd Steam Gala weekend which will run from July 13th – 15th. This is then followed by a new event to the MNR calendar, the Railway at War. This will be held on Saturday August 4th and Sunday August 5th.

It has been a long term aim of the MNR to introduce a real ale festival and August 25th – 27th will be the first annual MNR Real Ale Festival at Dereham. Anything goes as far as the train services with a variety of steam, diesel and rail car action.

The must-attend event in the preservation calendar for 2012 is the Class 47 Golden Jubilee event which will run from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd of September. Following on from the legendary Class 37 event, a number of locomotives will be in service representing the different varieties of these popular locomotives as they reach their 50th anniversary. Both the home fleet and visitors will be in attendance with a couple of special guests both mainline and preserved.

The final new event of the year will the ‘Multiple Matters’ weekend on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st October. This will see all the MNR’s fleet of multiple units in service as well as some invited visitors.

We hope you will be able to join us at some point during a superb year to come.