The North East | Archive | 2006 | April | 10
From the archive, first published Monday 10th Apr 2006.
A MOTHBALLED tourist railway is still on track for a summer reopening, bosses say.
But no date has been set for trains to run on the Weardale line, between Stanhope and Wolsingham, County Dur-ham, which closed at the start of last year with debts of nearly £1m.
Durham County Council heard from its deputy chief executive, Chris Tunstall, that progress was being made to bring Weardale Railways Limited out of administration.
He said administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) was receiving private and public funding totalling £540,000, which would mean that payments could be made to groups owed money.
The Ealing Community Transport (ECT) group, which will run the line, has paid £100,000 and the Wear-dale Railway Trust has paid £30,000.
Mr Tunstall said: "There is still an issue around the ownership of the line.
"The county council has agreed to take on ownership of the bridges where the line crosses the roads, and that will go through as soon as the company has purchased the line."
PWC is due to report to the line's main funders, including the county and Wear Valley district councils, ECT, the railway trust and development agency One NorthEast, today.
A trust spokesman: "Along with ECT, which now has 75 per cent of the railway company, we are anxious that trains should start running again as soon as possible.
"There are still one or two legal matters to be settled, but we are still on course to start rail services again this summer."
Weardale councillor John Shuttleworth said: "It is time we had a date. We have waited long enough."
© Newsquest Media Group 2008