'You volunteer at a railway museum - do you drive the trains?' is a question I often get asked when people find out I am a volunteer at the Rocks by Rail Museum. Whilst I have ridden on some of the locomotives apart from being a Driver for a Fiver when I visited before becoming a volunteer I have never driven a locomotive whilst actually volunteering. In fact when I joined I made it clear I had no pretentions of being a train driver but I was there to put something into the museum with whatever skills I have. That is what I have done getting involved in all sorts of things with a group of like minded guys who are great to be with. At the moment I seem to be chief grass cutter. We don't have a huge volunteer base so we all have to be able to turn our hands to whatever needs doing. Grass cutting may not be glamorous but it makes a big difference especially at a site as large as Rocks by Rail. Our guests may not notice the cut grass as they wander about but they certainly would notice uncut grass if they had to wade through knee high wet grass. So today, despite having already been in on Tuesday I was back for half a day to do some more urgently needed cutting.
It does give me a lot of satisfaction to see what was an overgrown area turned into an area that looks groomed! It also gives me a chance to see things at close hand that our guests can not. Me and the mower go places where no mower has ventured which brings me close to things I would never see so close up anywhere else. It may all look like a lot of rusty machinery and rolling stock but it is what the museum is all about - keeping the history of the iron stone industry in the locality alive for guests to appreciate and learn from. Without the volunteers none of this would be possible and to get some of this rusty stuff looking even better we need more volunteers.
So here are some photos of what I was mowing around and if you are a fan of railways nothing could be more delightful! By the way you may appreciate the cut grass!
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