Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership has been working with groups along the line to increase their travel confidence through the Try The Train Project.

The project is funded by Northern Trains and is open to community groups in the Darlington, Shildon, Newton Aycliffe and Bishop Auckland areas.

The aim of the project is to support participants who may experience barriers to independent rail travel, such as low travel confidence or accessibility requirements. Participants take part in a short series of workshops and supported rail experiences, building skills such as journey planning through websites and apps, navigating confidently through stations and finding travel information.

Darlington Learning and Skills
In 2024 and 2025, we worked with students from Darlington Learning & Skills. We looked at journey planning using the Northern App. We explored social barriers to rail travel, such as feeling anxious about having to sit next to someone you don’t know or feeling overwhelmed in a noisy, busy station. We discussed quieter times to travel and places in the station where we can access information and help if needed. Our rail experiences in 2024 focussed around using rail services to travel for Further Education. We visited Middlesbrough College for a tour of their facilities.

Shildon Alive Youth Group
In 2025, we worked with students from Shildon Alive Youth Group. This group were keen to feel more confident in using the trains to access leisure activities. We learned how to find information online to plan our journeys in advance and how to use the ticket machines on the platform. The group decided to visit Redcar for a day at the beach. They were able to find the information they needed on the station display screens and feel confident navigating their way around the station.

Jess Young, Rail Education Officer for the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership said, “This is a fantastic programme that can be adapted to meet the travel needs of the participating group. We have previously worked with groups looking to travel for further education, employment or leisure. It is open to all groups in the community provided participants are over the age of 14.

We encourage anyone who leads a group to get in touch for more information please email rail.education@bishopline.org to arrange an initial discussion.”

Bishop Line CRP is currently collaborating with 2 local organisations to make small steps to help tackle the issue of suicide in our area, one of those organisations is Darlington Mind.

The partnership helped Darlington Mind to secure funding from the CommunityRail Network and CrossCountry to create a Rail Themed Mental Health Trail which would be situated in Darlington town centre during Mental Health Awareness Week 2025 with the support of Darlington Borough Council events team.

Darlington Mind engaged with local groups and artists to design and decorate 25 2D wooden cutouts of trains which a relevant to Darlington’s heritage –  Locomotion No 1, Derwent, Tornado, Mallard, Prince of Wales, there were 5 of each train. Each of the trains were decorated in a design which related to one of the mental health 5 ways to wellbeing – Connect, Take notice, Learn, Give and Be active.

They then created a mindfulness trail around Darlington town centre during Mental Health Awareness Week in May 2025, based on the S&DR200 theme, featuring the decorated trains.

The decorated trains were located in indoor locations with an explanation board beside each train featuring the project overview and a link to find out more about Mind, and the 5 ways to wellbeing.

The text alongside each train drew together information about the locomotive, the five ways to wellbeing and the artists inspiration to present an appealing and informative trail to promote both better Mental Health and S&DR200.

Now the trail has closed the trains are being weather proofed and they will be relocated to various locations throughout the year, along with their boards. We hope the first location will be Hopetown Darlington,  followed by Locomotion, and then along the S&DR walking & cycling trail when it opens, and potentially at stations, so the messaging will live for the whole year and possibly longer.

So look out for them!

Bishop Line CRP is currently collaborating with 2 local organisations to make small steps to help tackle the issue of suicide in our area, one of those organisations is ManHealth.

ManHealth run support groups for men in and around County Durham and the North East of England. They also organise walks to encourage their men to meet up away from the group to help build community and friendship.

With support from the Community Rail Network and CrossCountry, the partnership is helping to fund a series of monthly walks starting and finishing at Bishop Line Stations. The project aims to engage with men of any age, living or working in Bishop Auckland, Shildon, Newton Aycliffe and Darlington throughout 2025 and up to the end March 2026.

To date walks have been delivered in Bishop Auckland, Newton Aycliffe, Darlington and Shildon.

Look out for details of the next walk on the ManHealth Facebook page.

Storylines is an artist-in-residence programme on board Northern train services between Bishop Auckland and Middlesbrough. The route follows the original Stockton & Darlington Railway, the world’s first locomotive-powered public railway which changed the way the world trades, travels and communicates.

The Storylines project, led by Sam Slatcher of Citizzen Songwriters, commissioned local artists to engage with the communities along the Bishop Line and the wider Stockton & Darlington Railway to respond creatively to what the railway means to them 200 years after its birth.

Artists including Lizzie Lovejoy, Carmen Thomson, Harry Gallagher, Rowan McCabe, Becci Sharrock and Sam Slatcher travelled between Bishop Auckland and Saltburn, gathering stories from passengers. Find out more about the artists.

The artists then translated those stories into artwork including poetry, illustrations and songs. Some of the final pieces from the project were performed at the celebration event at the Forum, Darlington on 27^th September 2023.

Some beautiful films have been made  featuring characters that the artists met during the project. The films were produced by Lonely Tower Film & Media and can be viewed at the bottom of this page.

The poetry from the project has been turned into beautiful posters illustrated by Lizzie Lovejoy and are displayed along the line and can be seen below.

For Lizzie Lovejoy, writer and storyteller, “there is something magical about this train journey. This line revolutionised the world of work and travel, providing opportunities for working-class people that didn’t rely on one town alone. It provided connection, between place and people. We are continuing that tradition”.

News – Album launch

The latest exciting development from the Storylines project is the production of an album of the beautiful songs and poems created throughout the project.

‘Passengers & Pioneers’ created by Sam Slatcher of Citizen Songwriters along with award winning Northeast poets, Lizzie Lovejoy, Carmen Thomson, Harry Gallagher, Rowan McCabe, Becci Sharrock, celebrates the birth of the Stockton & Darlington Railway and what it means to us today as it approaches its 200th anniversary. The album incorporates stories of passengers travelling today and archive history from the first journey in 1825.

The first songs from the album ‘Pioneers’ and ‘Take me Home’ were released on the 27th September 2024, to coincide with the 199th anniversary of the S&DR.  The full ‘Passengers & Pioneers’ album will be launched on 14th March 2025 in Newcastle. The event is free of charge and will run twice, first at 12-1pm and again at 7:30-8:30pm in The Common Room Lecture Hall, a 2 min walk from Newcastle Central Station. More details to follow.

Storylines was curated by Citizen Songwriters, Supported by Bishop Line CRP, Tees Women Poets, The Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, Tracks Darlington, and Lonely Tower Film & Media. Funded by Northern, CrossCountry and Community Rail Network.

The Partnership has been working with Shildon Station Adopters and Locomotion, on a project to improve the experience of using Shildon Station. The footbridge is used by rail passengers and the local community to get into town. It has been neglected for many years and graffiti has made walking across it an unpleasant experience and through engagement with two local secondary schools, and the amazing skills and mentoring from local artist Dan Walls, the team have brought the bridge back to life making it an enjoyable experience to walk across.

Shildon Station had many anti-social behaviour reports including graffiti and stone throwing. The station footbridge is used by rail users, residents accessing Shildon Town and visitors to Locomotion. The experience of crossing the bridge was awful due to explicit graffiti and poor maintenance. This needed to change before 2025 when the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) will celebrate its 200^th Anniversary. Locomotion is a primary attraction on the route and one of 3 key gateways to a new 26-mile walking and cycling route and it will attract a huge number of visitors; hopefully many of them arriving by train and using the footbridge.

The project team wanted to engage local young people to help improve the experience of using the using the footbridge so it felt safer and more welcoming, to reduce anti-social behaviour and to increase community pride. By involving local young people, the project aimed to tackle anti-social behaviour peer to peer – identifying ambassador students to develop and apply the design, who would then feel supported to speak up if any future graffiti is applied to the bridge. By taking part in the project they would feel a sense of pride which they would share with their peers.

The project team secured funding from CrossCountry, Northern and the Bishop Line CRP.

Dan and our Rail Education Officer Jess along with staff from Locomotion, visited visited two Bishop Auckland based  secondary schools – St John’s Catholic College & Sixth Form and King James I Academy in March, to engage year 9 students in the project. Over several visits the students have explored the history of Shildon, the relevance of the upcoming 200th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, learned about rail safety and about the benefits of street art and how it can enhance a place. They then explored how it felt to use the bridge, how they would like people to feel using the bridge, and created images that represent Shildon. The students developed a set of key words to define their artwork and the designs they created are fabulous. Over 2 further sessions in each school, Dan worked with a small group of students who would become ambassadors for the artwork once complete, developing the words, symbols and images into the final artwork.

Station adopters, Bishop Line CRP officers and Northern prepared the bridge ready for the next phase. Then in the summer students worked with Dan, learning street art techniques and applying the design to the bridge.

We’ve gathered some fantastic feedback while the artwork was being added:

“Oh this is a wonderful idea and very much needed!” (NC – facebook)

“Looking forward to seeing it finished, I walk my 4 little dogs past here most days. In fact one almost got a blue nose for being too nosy while the bridge was being painted” (TB – facebook)

Claire Storey Senior Public Protection Officer and resident of Shildon commented “Congratulations for such a lovely scheme. I visit regularly and would like to try and re-create this sort of project in the subways of Newton Aycliffe as part of my work on the Community Action Team.

Cllr Samantha Townsend, Proudly Serving Shildon and the Dene Valley Villages had this to say about the project. “It’s lovely to see the project on the Shildon railway bridge. As a local councillor this bridge and the graffiti that covered it was a regular issue raised by constituents and I’d repeatedly struggled to find out how was responsible for the bridge in order to rectify it. I’m incredibly grateful to the partners who worked to get to the bottom of this issue and restore the bridge, in such a colourful creative way. We are proud people in Shildon and in the run up to the 200^th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway it means a lot to us that visitors to our town get a good first impressions when they visit by rail.”

We celebrated the completion of the artwork in July with some key project stakeholders and they had some very positive feedback to share.

Cllr Shirley Quinn, Mayor of Shildon Town Council  “I’d like to say a huge thank you all from the bottom of my heart and from the local community for all the work you have done on this project. The results are absolutely amazing, and you should be very proud of yourselves. This morning we’ve been celebrating the announcement of the plans for the S&DR 200 celebrations and the Railway 200 programme, which is all about the railways of the past present and future. And a photo of Shildon Smart Art was shown as part of the presentation to national press and media, so that has brought this project to the forefront. Our railway heritage is how we all came to be here, because of the past. But going forward the railway is going to form part of our new world. Just remember there are jobs in rail, all sorts of jobs, in the construction of things, driving the engines, train staff, office staff, there are so many jobs that are there, available for young people. So, this is the start. This is not the end of 200 years, this is the next 100 years.”

Phoebe Ackers – Community & Engagement Lead and Director of Learning for Art & Photography at King James I Academy “Having the opportunity to work on the project was an absolute honour. We took the whole cohort of year 9 students and explored the theme of pride in our community.  Dan and the team worked with them to develop ideas and feelings around the area and encouraged the sense of pride from being where they are from. Throughout the day our students designed their own bridge ideas based on key words relating to the Shildon Area. From then, we chose 4 local students to complete the artwork who will be ambassadors for the local area, encouraging their peers to take pride in where they are from. They have done an absolutely amazing job & take pride in the work they have done. Our school has been a buzz since the project and we are regularly getting feedback from other local students on how the bridge has been transformed.”

Dan Walls – Illumination Wall Art “I’m so grateful to be involved in this project. I travel by train frequently and it has always been an enjoyable experience. To have this opportunity to share my art and celebrate 200 years of rail travel is such an honour. The positivity from the people of Shildon has been enormous I hope we have inspired some local pride. I want to say a huge thank you to the young artists at King James I Academy and St John’s for all their help and to the Locomotion museum.”

Pam Porter – Operations and Events Manager, Locomotion “Locomotion is proud to be part of the Station Adopter team at Shildon Station. By working in partnership on the Shildon Smart Art project, we were able to reach out to local young people to tell the exciting story of Shildon’s links to the earliest days of the rail industry, and to talk about the opportunities which the railway could offer them now and in the future. The final artwork has had a significant positive impact on the station environment, and has been extremely well received by the local community and museum visitors.”

Marie Addison – Northern Community & Sustainability Manager – North East “I’d like to say a huge thank you on behalf of Northern Trains who manage this station, this bridge was awful, and look at it now. I didn’t realise how busy this bridge was! We had such positivity on the days when we were here painting it, from the people that were using the bridge, walking their dogs, walking with their children, everyone has something positive to say about it. And they were all saying thank you as well, which is so lovely. This is a huge addition to the station it really is, and I hope to replicate this at other stations.”

Charlie Walton – Vice Chair of the Bishop Line CRP “We’ve been campaigning to get the station bridge artwork done for a number of years, our main focus was to ensure that this bridge was a proper gateway to Shildon, Shildon being the first railway town in the world and the home of the national railway museum. So, its very important generally, but more particularly next year, when we hope to get thousands of visitors coming to see the museum, that the station is up to par. And you guys have done a marvellous job with this, and absolutely superb job, I applaud you all, it shows a little bit of innovation in Shildon that I’m sure Timothy Hackworth would have been proud of.”

We hope you love it as much as we do.

Well done everyone!

Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership is looking to recruit an interim volunteer chairperson who has the enthusiasm and drive to support the CRP through a task and finish review of the partnership’s governance until 31^st March 2025.

We are seeking an individual who brings strong experience of governance to work with the partnership’s steering group and offer support and direction to the partnership officer to review and update key partnership documents and processes.

The individual should be able to effectively set the agenda and chair steering group meetings and be able to work with all partners to ensure the continued success of the CRP.

New expressions of interest to be received by 15th November 2024. 

If you are interested in this voluntary role and feel you can demonstrate you have the characteristics below and proven experience required, please email chair@bishopline.org . Please include a statement of interest highlighting your suitability for this role and how you would approach the interim role’s governance review. If you would like an informal chat about the role with a partnership member please also email chair@bishopline.org and we can put you in touch with a representative.

We look forward to hearing from you! 

Key characteristics and requirements of the Interim Volunteer Chairperson:

 1. Characteristics required for the task and finish review of the partnership’s governance:

• Proven strong experience of governance.
• Proven leadership skills and a willingness to lead this partnership.
• Proven Collaborative working/Team building.
• Enthusiasm/drive.

 2. Additional characteristics beneficial to chair the CRP:

• Commitment to attend and give full attention to meetings and matters of partnership business.
• Advantageous to have experience of the rail industry, community development or sustainable travel.
• Good communication and interpersonal skills.
• Impartiality, fairness, and the ability to respect confidences.
• Ability to ensure decisions are taken and then actions followed-up.

3. Requirements to ensure the partnership functions properly:

• Meet with the CRP Officer on a monthly basis to check progress on each element of the action plan, to provide any support needed to overcome any challenges.
• Ensure meeting matters are dealt with in an orderly, efficient manner, actions are taken, carefully considered decisions are made and to arrange for accurate minutes to be recorded.
• Bring impartiality and objectivity to meetings.
• Facilitate change and address conflict within the steering group.
• Review governance performance and skills.
• Ensure the steering group has representation from all partners and communities covered

 4. Requirements to ensure the steering group is managed effectively:

• Coordinate with the CRP Officer and secretary quarterly regarding steering group meeting agendas and ensure meetings are run in accordance with the Constitution.
• Ensure financial reports, progress reports and metrics are circulated to steering group members at least 7 days before the quarterly steering group meetings by the CRP Officer/Secretary
• Ensure the CRP is meeting its contractual obligations with funding partners and vice versa
• Ensure the CRP Code of Conduct is always being adhered to

5. Requirements to represent the organisation:

• Act as an ambassador and effectively communicate the vision and purpose of the community rail partnership to external partners in the rail industry, public sector bodies and the media at external meetings and events.
• Be aware of current issues in rail and local communities that might affect the organisation.

 Time Commitment:  The role of interim voluntary chair requires an estimated average commitment of 8 hours/month.  These hours will be Monday – Friday during the working day, however there may be a few occasions where events are in the evening or at weekends.

Additional opportunities – There will be the opportunity to attend additional events such as the Community Rail Network (CRN) awards, CRN chair meetings and industry conferences/webinars and training can be made available through CRN.

This Autumn we have been working with New Writing North to enable elements of Durham Book Festival to engage with communities along the Bishop Line.

On behalf of the partnership, New Writing North produced a series of interactive creative reading and writing experiences for community groups inspired by the themes of community connection and travel.

The work aimed to increase wellbeing by connecting communities and building creative confidence, develop creative talent, and increase literacy levels.

Funding from Northern and CrossCountry helped us deliver three major elements within the community.

1. Turn up for the books
2. Balance the books
3. The little read

Turn up for the Books 

Turn up for the Books is a project designed to give young people from the North of England, aged 16-25 an insight into careers within literature, a traditionally London based industry.

14 young people received a series of online workshops between September-November 2022, focussed on event planning, reviewing and developing publishing industry-based knowledge. They worked together to programme a public event at Durham Book Festival in October showcasing 3 Black writers (a poet, an activist and a novelist), as well as attending and reviewing events for the DBF website.

Two young reviewers have written about their creative and professional journey working on the festival.

My experience planning and chairing an event for Turn Up For The Books 2022 – Durham Book Festival 

My experience taking part in Turn Up For The Books 2022  – Durham Book Festival

Balance the books

Balance the Books is a new project that invites young people to discover brilliant new books by authors from underrepresented backgrounds. We know that the best books act as both a mirror and a window: reflecting back to us our own experiences and feelings, while also revealing a wider view of the world.

This element of the project aimed to develop connected communities across 5 secondary schools on the Bishop Line by supporting them to be involved in Balance the Books and further co-creative projects inspired by the project’s themes of inclusion and diversity.

The Little Read

This year’s chosen picture book is Polonius the Pit Pony by Richard O’Neill – a Romani storyteller from the North East of England.

This beautifully illustrated book depicts instantly recognisable illustrations of Durham, whilst also introducing readers to the lives of Gypsy/ Roma/ Travellers – the GRT community is the largest ethnic minority group in the county. It is a story of a brave pony’s journey of courage and tenacity that we hope will inspire children and families across Durham.

This collaboration provided a set of 30 copies of the books to all 24 primary schools along the Bishop Line, along with resources for teachers.

It also helped provide half term community workshops for families, at Greenfields Arts, Darlington Hippodrome and Bishop Auckland Library.

Thank you for everyone who has engaged with this project, there are more activities to come in schools and we will update you on those in the spring.

This spring we have been working hard with artists and communities to think and talk and make art about connection, we have been connecting with our peers, our families, our friends, our communities, our railways and our heritage to tackle isolation and have a lot of fun!

Our Line Connections was developed to improve feelings of connection in the Bishop Line community to address:

1. social isolation and loneliness experienced during Covid-19
2. feedback gathered from listeners of the original ‘Our Line Play’ of feelings of a ‘lack of connection’.

It aimed to build connections between generations and places along the line.

In 2017 BLCRP partnered with Luxi to produce the ‘Our Line’ audio play to listen to on the Bishop Line train. In 2020 the Our Line app was updated to be listened to anywhere to gain mindfulness during the challenging times experienced in lockdown. Importantly, listener feedback highlighted that ‘Our Line’ could prompt meaningful conversations in the community around ‘connection’, sparking memories, feelings of hope and reduce feelings of loneliness.

In Spring 2021 Luxi, BLCRP and Northern evaluated what project success and failure looked like, using the ‘Wheel of Failure’ tool and developed a concept to deliver successful outcomes.

Funding from CrossCountry, Arts Council England, County Durham Community Foundation, Durham County Council, The National Lottery Community Fund and Locomotion enabled the group to engage a team of artists and creatives to develop the concept into a programme of activities within the community, building on the foundations of ‘Our Line’.

The team of artists were selected for their skills in building trusting relationships and connections between people & others, places, their histories, heritage & memories, each bringing an enquiry they hoped to explore through the project.

In early 2022 schools and care homes were invited to join the project with the aim of connecting 1 primary school/nursery with 1 secondary school and 1 care home in each of 3 localities along the line.

Despite positive response from care homes, covid challenges meant the project was unable to engage them as full partners. Instead we found isolated and struggling adults through other groups like Greenfield Cree Men, Head of Steam Dementia Group and Darlington for Culture, who all engaged.

Participants took part in 5 sessions:

• 1 x Introduction – listening to ‘Our Line’ and exploring what connection meant to them.
• 2 x visual arts workshops exploring techniques such as neurographic art, which transforms stress and fear into beautiful art.
• 2 x song writing workshops using feelings around connection to create emotive lyrics.

Participants used different senses and creativity to express their own sense of connection, learn about those of others and create songs and artwork that celebrate and describe connection. They developed artistic, song writing and performance skills, practiced mental wellbeing techniques and developed confidence and self-expression.

Between February and June 2022 200+ people engaged in over 42 workshops in 6 schools and 3 community groups.

The project will be celebrated at 2pm on 22 June 2022 with 100+ participants together.

Planned workshops have finished and due to their success, extra sessions have been requested, those with the Cree Men have started already.

Evaluation has been ongoing throughout the project and following the celebration the team will review the project using the following tools:

• The ‘Wheel of failure’.
• Team member responses to questionnaires at milestones.
• Participant responses to key questions.

A final report will be published on www.our-line.net.

Our Line Connection achieved 3rd Place for best project involving diverse groups in the 2022 Community Rail Awards.

Late in 2021 we were approached by New Writing North and the Durham Book Festival to how we cold collaborate to develop a creative writing project on the Bishop Line. We jumped at the chance.

Key facts about our area:

• County Durham has some of the lowest cultural engagement figures in England and is ranked as having `Very High Deprivation’ in the UK Multiple Index of Deprivation (the North East region has the highest unemployment figures in country).
• The 2011 Skills for Life Survey found the North East to have the poorest literacy performance in the country (along with London).
•  The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened pre-existing issues of inequality, isolation and deprivation in County Durham. W

New Writing North knows that reading and writing for pleasure plays a vital part in developing literacy, imagination and in building confidence, and believe that now, more than ever, books and creative writing can play a powerful role in helping young people express themselves and make sense of this changing world. 

What were we trying to achieve?

We partnered with local attraction ‘Locomotion’ and local charity food bank ‘Shildon Alive’ to deliver a creative writing project which would give young people the opportunity to explore creative writing in a new setting and with unexpected topics. The overarching aim was to explore the concept of journeys; journeys which we could take – on the train to explore the heritage rich area of the Bishop Line for example, and the journeys which the food we eat takes.  Durham Book Festival brought one of their expert community writers with experience in working with young people, Stephanie Lyttle, to help support and inspire them with writing.

The creative journeys was also about opening connections to the wider area, using creativity to improve health and wellbeing, confidence and communication skills, towards supporting young people as they begin work, training or look to further their education.

What were the original success criteria?

We aimed to engage with two keys groups in the community:

1. primary school aged children in a the Shildon area, this was to grow awareness of the food bank to children and families who may need to access it.
2. Young adults aged 15-26 who are not in a traditional educational setting, those who don’t necessarily have the opportunity to or the natural desire to take part in activities like this.

We also wanted to give participants a fresh view of creative writing, particularly with the young adults, we wanted to change perceptions, if someone thinks creative writing is not for them why not try exploring creative writing in a new setting or about a topic you have a passion for.

The Project was planned to be delivered in 3 phases:

• The first phase involved our resident artist Stephanie Lyttle, delivering creative writing sessions with young school children both at Locomotion and at their school.
• The second phase aimed to deliver creative writing sessions with young adults aged 15-26 on the train between Bishop Auckland and Darlington. We planned to run the two creative journeys along the Bishop Line with a group of approx. 15 – 20 young people from different youth groups and youth-based organisations aged 15-26 from Bishop Auckland and Shildon. The Bishop Line connects Bishop Auckland with Darlington via rail, travelling along parts of the historic Stockton & Darlington Railway – the first passenger railway that opened in 1825.

There would be two Creative Journeys. The first planned to involve a free return trip with a walk around the heritage sites of Darlington. The second would also feature a free return trip but would finish at Locomotion Museum in Shildon for phase three.

• The third phase was a special event at the museum called ‘Loco Lates’ to showcase the output of the creative pieces as well as creative writing from the local primary school.

What were the outcomes?

The engagement with the primary school aged children was fantastic. The local school visited Locomotion for a lesson in the main museum with our resident writer Stephanie Lyttle, and explored the exhibits, set their imaginations wild and wrote about what they’d like to see there, and what they’d change if they owned the museum. They explored the journey of the food they eat and the types of transport one piece of fruit may travel on to get from field to their tummy. The continued their writing in their classroom and produced individual pieces, partner pieces and a whole class poem. Many of the children came to the celebration event at Loco Lates at Locomotion and performed their pieces to their family and friends.

The celebration event at the Loco Lates was an outstanding success, the students enjoyed celebrating their creative pieces with their family and friends while the museum was closed to the public, and enjoyed a performance by the Shildon Institute Choir, as well as food preparation demonstrations by Shildon Alive. A celebration film has been produced and will be shared once captioned.

Therefore the outcomes for the primary school children and their families at the Loco Lates event were:

• Greater understanding of the providence of the food they eat.
• Greater understanding of the types of transport used in manufacture and distribution of goods.
• Greater understanding of creative writing practices relevant to their curriculum.
• Increased confidence to perform in front of others.
• Greater awareness of local food bank within the local community.
• Greater awareness of the fantastic facilities of Locomotion within the local community.
• Greater awareness of the Bishop Line community rail partnership within the local community.

We planned to run a creative writing train journey between Shildon and Darlington involving 15-26 year-olds identified from youth groups and charities rather than traditional educational settings. Despite very hard work, it was extremely challenging to engage anyone from this age range outside of a traditional educational setting, so we undertook plan B! Engaging with passengers on the train we completed 50+ postcards with their thoughts and memories of travelling by train, compiled them all into a song which was performed at the Loco Lates event.

Therefore the outcomes for the plan B event of engagement with the public on the train using postcards were:

• Greater awareness of the Bishop Line community rail partnership within the local community.
• Refreshed connections with rail travel and memories
• Refreshed desire to travel
• Positive awareness of creative writing

What lessons can be learnt from this project? 

Its takes time and some strong connections to engage young adults, this is not something which just happens, build your connections and don’t lose touch with any that you have, you never know when you may want to call upon them.

Have a plan B! . The postcard element of the project was far more successful than we could have imagined, we gathered the postcards into themes, family stories, first train journeys, funny anecdotes, travel aspirations and most memorable journeys on the Bishop Line and the comments were truly moving.

Creative Journeys was shortlisted in the category of best project involving children & young children in the 2022 Community Rail Awards.

The Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership is once again giving passengers free ‘friendly’ face coverings at Bishop Auckland Station.

As the world starts to open up again, many of the population have now been vaccinated, and the number of people travelling by train along the Bishop Line begins to increase, the partnership is asking passengers to be mindful of fellow travellers.

During the past year passengers classed as key or essential workers have continued to use the train and have grown comfortable doing so, however passengers who have been shielding, homeworking or just not needed to travel, may find it daunting returning to train travel. This is where the partnership is asking for the help of its passengers to make everyone’s journey as friendly and comfortable as possible.

Felicity Machnicki, officer for the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership and mental health first aider at Darlington borough council commented,

“Bishop Line ‘friendly’ face coverings are available free of charge to passengers to help ‘pass on a smile’ to people returning to the railway. As our passengers return to the Bishop Line, we’d like to see the sense of community return too.

“Face coverings are still essential to help control the spread of coronavirus along with other measures, but they can take away some of the social interaction which take place when you travel by train. A smile from fellow passenger could make someone feel more comfortable on their first train journey since lockdown. With spirits raised they pass on that smile to another passenger, and so on. We designed the ‘friendly’ face coverings to start that chain reaction and help bring a sense of comfort  back to our passengers during these changing times”.

Marie Addison, Community and Sustainability Manager for Northern, added:

“At Northern, we are working hard to make travelling by train safe, by cleaning all carriages and key stations every day, placing extra focus on cleaning touchpoints like handrails and armrests, using an anti-viral sanitiser which stops the virus for longer plus our staff are on hand to help and are working harder than ever to make travelling on the Bishop Line safe and enjoyable”.

Whether you’re taking your first trip by train since lockdown or you’re a seasoned traveller there are some precautions set by the government which you should follow to help keep yourself, other passengers and transport staff safe:

• You must wear a face covering on public transport and in substantially enclosed areas of transport hubs in England, unless you are exempt

• You should stay 2 metres apart from people you do not live with where possible, or 1 metre while wearing a face covering.
• limit the number of people or households that you come into contact with, for example, by avoiding the busiest routes, as well as busy times, such as the rush hour
• travel side by side or behind other people, rather than facing them, where seating arrangements allow
• avoid loud talking, shouting or singing
• wash or sanitise your hands regularly

• avoid touching your face
• only touch surfaces where required for safe travel
• dispose of waste safely, including items such as used disposable face coverings

The ‘friendly’ face coverings are available from Bishop Auckland Station while stocks last and will be given out thanks to the support of Bishop Trains staff.