Shortlisted for Community Rail Awards

Shortlisted for Community Rail Awards

Two local projects have been shortlisted in this year’s Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP) Community Rail Awards.

Wickham Market station has been shortlisted in the category Best Improved Station Buildings. The station house opened to the public earlier this year following a major refurbishment and restoration; the works were undertaken by Station House Community Connections, a local charitable organisation.

As part of the scheme the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership was able to facilitate a £25,000 grant towards reinstating the platform canopy which, along with a number of other funding partners including the Railway Heritage Trust, has substantially improved passenger facilities at the rural station, which features meeting rooms and a café.

Shortlisting in the Best Marketing Campaign is for a new line guide produced by the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership. The commissioning of a new geographical map of of the two lines running from Ipswich to Felixstowe and Lowestoft also been included a poster version displayed at stations.

The guide and poster feature a host of information about towns, villages and attractions along the routes aimed at encouraging residents and tourists to explore the local area by train.

The awards, which are now in their 13th year, recognise the important but often unsung work carried out by community rail partnerships and station adoption groups, amongst others, who provide a welcome social and economic contribution, with their activities, to their communities.

Last year the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership won first prize at the awards for a joint event celebrating the Queens Ninetieth Birthday and Fiftieth Anniversary of the East Suffolk Line being reprieved from closure by Beeching in 1966.

The winners will be announced Thursday 5 October 2017.