Heritage railway in Staffordshire forced to make changes due to rising coal costs
A heritage railway has been forced to make changes due to the rising price of coal.
Churnet Valley Railway in Staffordshire has put out a message to explain the issues it has been facing due to the ongoing supply issues with coal in the country.
It has caused the heritage railway to change the engine pulling the services.
A spokesman for the Railway said: "As many of you will be aware, the supply of coal has become an increasingly complex matter in the United Kingdom.
"There are Government policies which are pushing for a complete ban on coal, whilst another part of Government is keen to see tourism return to pre Covid levels.
"Clearly, for a Heritage Railway which operates steam locomotive, this causes problems."
The railway said the supply of coal had been an increasing complex matter, noting that Government policies were conflicting on coal use, although it also noted the last operational coal mine was due to stay open, which would help the service in the future.
It did note that the current war in Ukraine was causing issues with its current supply.
The spokesman said: "The last operational coal mine in the UK, which can supply locomotive quality coal, has received a reprieve this last month and we understand will be able to supply coal to the heritage sector imminently.
"However the ongoing war in Ukraine has also prevented our usual supply of coal being available from Russia."
However, it also noted that coal was in scarce supply at present and the price had increased 148 per cent in the last nine weeks, which meant that the railway would be required to run diesel-only days during June.
The spokesman said: "In short, coal is currently in scarce supply which in turn leads to an upshot in price and we realistically cannot pass this on to the travelling public.
"In the last nine weeks alone, the price of coal has increased 148 per cent.
"We will for as long as possible continue to run our steam locomotives but, however, we are introducing some diesel only running days which we will be reviewing on a monthly basis going forwards.
"Therefore until this next review; all our timetabled services on Saturday, June 4, Saturday, June 11 and Saturday, June 25 will be hauled by one of resident heritage diesel locomotives – being either 33021 ‘Eastleigh’, 33102 ‘Sophie’ or our previously announced visitor 47292 once some planned maintenance has been committed."
For more information, go to churnetvalleyrailway.co.uk
