October 2025

Best ever total for Macmillan - £660

It is the 13th time that the Friends have held the Macmillan ‘Biggest Coffee Morning in the World—and it must be lucky 13 as the £660 total is the best ever!

Much of the thanks go to super-fundraiser Terry Rourke, who was determined this year to beat his own record for Macmillan. He had already held small draws over the last few months, which raised £300—but not satisfied with that he was there again on the day and raised another £100.

Many thanks also to all of those who attended and gave very generously, as ever, some of you travelling across town to make the event.

We were delighted that Stockport Mayor, Cllr Kerry Waters and her Mayoress Mrs Wendy Naden were able to attend, plus Deputy Mayor, Cllr Gary Lawson.

Stockport MP Nav Mishra also made the time to be there.

It was a well attended event and thanks as usual to the Committee who set up the event and served cakes and drinks.



Some of the Friends raising a toast to Retrorail after a good day out

Friends Dot, Dave (who arrange our bookings) with James, head of Retrorail Tours

Group members Ged, Michael and Ryland

Some of our 'customers' on Macmillan Day

Major fund raiser Terry with his 'manager' Margaret

Retrorail annual excursion

Norwich & Great Yarmouth

Our excursion this year combined our usual good time with celebrating Rail 200. As part of the celebrations the train used Denton Station as a scheduled stop for the first time as well as Reddish South.

33 Friends boarded at Reddish South this year, plus ten others, and at Denton, 16 passengers joined the trip, bound for Norwich and Great Yarmouth on Saturday August 30th.

James, organiser of the tour with the help of mum and some volunteer enthusiasts had a very long day—we boarded at 6.45am and arrived back at 9.30pm. Their day began around 3am and did not finish until well after midnight!

We were joined with a five-piece Folk group this year, with both Ryland & Michael able to join us, and entertained us on the way out and back.

Friends Sue & Keith treated us to a quiz on the way out; the Friends invited our members to a glass of prosecco and flapjacks and shortbread on the journey back.

It is always a really good day and the travelling is always as much fun as the destination. Dave reports he already has 16 wanting to reserve a place for the excursion next year, which is a first!

Bacon butties were enjoyed and pie & black eyed peas are always popular. Also popular is the real ale served by trolley—the only trip to offer this delight!

Group members Phil, Penny, Ged & Michael

Pictured above Stockport Silver Band

Below: from L to R: Penny, Phil, Michael and Ged - Michael is performing his self -penned 'Weekly Train' - can you possibly guess what that is about? (photo Noel Henry)

Pictured below L to R

Prospective Labour Candidate for Reddish South, Papa Andoh-Kwekie, Cllr Rachel Wise, Mayor Kerry Waters, Mayoress Wendy Naden, Vernon Bear, Friend & Committee member Dot, Navendu Mishra MP, Friend Walter Brett, FORSS Chair, Tom Grundy

The Friends go to Press!

We were surprised and rather flattered to be contacted by journalist Patrick van IJendoorn, who is the UK & Ireland correspondent for the Dutch publishing company Elsevier, (which specialises in academic and scientific publications), correspondent for national newspaper De Volkscrant and an author. He was writing a piece on the love of the English for their railways and intended to come to Denton Station, and meet some of the people who are trying to restore railways to their former glory. He was concentrating on the north west of England for his piece.

Of course your committee was as enthusiastic as ever to meet someone interested in our line, and invited him to see us at both Denton & Reddish South stations, and of course, take the opportunity to publicize our campaign for a new regular passenger service from Stockport to Manchester Victoria.

He was very interested in our stations and our campaign and we gave him the tour (doesn’t take long!) and he complemented us (well, Noel mainly at the moment) on the well maintained gardens; we showed off our artwork and gave him a brief history of the line and both stations.

We have promised to keep in contact and he is sending us his article when it is published

August 2025

Newsletter features

Apologies that the website has not been updated for longer than we would like - a combination of group activities and family stuff has kept us away from the keyboard.

However we have published our 1st newsletter of 2025 - these are the feature stories:

Bands on the Station

Our event to celebrate Rail 200 could, obviously not be a trip organised by the Friends, (although as part of Rail 200, Retrorail are taking us to Norwich and Great Yarmouth at the end of August- and using Denton as a scheduled station stop this year) so we decided to hold a concert on the station platform on Sunday 6th July.

We were graced with the presence of the Mayor, Cllr. Kerry Waters and her Lady Mayoress, Wendy Naden. Navendu Mishra MP for Stockport took time from his busy schedule to join a crowd of music lovers, which turned out to be our best attended event ever. Reddish residents, as ever did not let us down with their support. We were also joined by Vernon Bear - from our local Building Society, The Vernon.

Stockport Silver Band headlined our event, plus our resident Folk group—Ged, Phil, Penny & Michael who never disappoint and are ever popular.

We are indebted to The Unite Union, TfGM, Northern Rail, Felicity Decors (event hire) & The Vernon Building Society for their invaluable support

The event also raised £166.33 for The Christie—thank you all

The indefatigable Terry Rourke, (pictured above with the beautiful raffle prizes,) who has often graced our newsletters with his tireless fund-raising as part of our annual Macmillan Day, set up stall again as part of his determination to make every year better than the last!

pictured above L to R:

Patrick, Friend Sue, Vice Chair Keith, Secretary Kim, Treasurer Dot

(Patrick emailed after our meeting to say “In their aim to make the British railways great (again), the government could well start on the Denton / Reddish South line , do you agree with that?” I think that’s a resounding yes! )

[photo Noel Henry]

May 2025

Retro railtours is back!

Help celebrate the 200th anniversary year of Britain's railways in style on our special day trip to Norwich and the Norfolk Broads on Saturday August 30th 2025

You will have the option to alight at Norwich, where you will have around 5 hours to explore this fine city.

Alternatively, you can carry on to Great Yarmouth, where you'll have around 3 hours to enjoy this traditional seaside resort. Plenty of time for a bracing walk along the beach and some fish & chips! The train will then return north, dropping you off at your local station.

The train will be formed of an 1970s vintage 'Intercity 125 HST', provided by the 125 Group. The comfortable Mk3 coaches have seats with plenty of legroom. Our famous on board ‘Real Ale Bar’ will be available, serving a variety of hand-pumped Real Ales, wines and hot snacks. We are one of the only mainline operators in Britain to serve hand pumped real ales.

Reddish South Station is once again a scheduled stop, and, for the first time this year, so is Denton!

Friends of Reddish South Station members booking through FORSS can enjoy discounted fares.

Members contact forss1@stardustviking.co.uk

Non-members contact info@retrorailtours.co.uk

1st class sold out—standard class remaining only

 Stopping at:

 Crewe

 Wilmslow

 Stockport

 Reddish South

 Denton

                           Stalybridge

                           Brighouse

             Wakefield Kirkgate

  Norwich

  Great Yarmouth

  (times to be confirmed)

March 2025

The Folk Train that wasn't!

Our first celebration for Rail 200 did not get off to a good start unfortunately when the train was cancelled at the last moment.

Pictured left are some of the disappointed would-be commuters outside the station, where the FORSS committee waited to let people know the bad news.

We were particularly sorry as the lovely staff at Stalybridge Buffet Bar had turned in to work early to open especially for us. We thank them, and our passengers for their good natured and fantastic support, and we will rearrange as soon as possible, once we can try and work out a way to avoid this this happening again.  We must also thank Sarah at Sykes Cafe for dealing with the influx getting a consolation cuppa!

from l to R, Artist Sophia, Visual Artist Susanna Vosper & Navendu Mishra MP unveil the artwork at the station. Sophia is a GCSE student from Reddish Vale High School.

Artist Susanna, Friend Dot, Sophia & Chairman, Tom

Below, Spohia's teacher Dan Glenister & Susanna

FORSS are awarded level 5 - 'Outstanding'

The RHS 'It's Your Neighbourhood' awards were held in October - it was our second year of entering and once again we were delighted to receive the top level award for our station garden.

The pressure is really on now, as we have a standard to maintain!

We have plans to extend the colour at the station in 2025 including developing a herb garden, and involving the local community more with events to celebrate Rail 200– a national year-long programme of events.

December 2024

Extracts from our December newsletter celebrate the new artwork for 175 years of 'our' line, and we now have the official photo from the RHS 'It's Your Neighbourhood' awards.

The unveiling of the 175th Anniversary of the Reddish South & Denton Line

It was a pleasure to be able to ask Nav Mishra MP, Sophia & Susanna, our talented artists, to unveil the artwork to commemorate 175 years of the Reddish South & Denton line.

As Chairman Tom pointed out, our campaign to re-introduce regular passenger services from Stockport to Manchester Victoria has been for exactly a tenth of that time; 17 and a half years shows we are not going to be giving up!

The unveiling was originally scheduled for the 7th December when we were also hoping to see a vintage engine pass through, but it was cancelled and Storm Darragh was threatening!

Fortunately it was, as you can see from the picture, the rescheduled event fell on a lovely sunny day, even if it was really cold!

As usual our members and friends were out in support, for which we are always grateful; Nav spoke of his appreciation for the new artwork and how he had recently spoken to Lord Hendy, Transport Minister, about our station and facilities badly needed at Stockport and Heaton Chapel.

It was an excellent event yet again, thank you all.

pictured L to R:

Friends Dot, Dave and William White from Manchester Council, who presented the award