THE DEAN Forest Railway Society has launched an appeal for contributions to a limited-edition book to mark its 50th anniversary this year.

The society is asking locals to dig out their photographs that show the station and its trains through the ages, as it gears up to celebrate its 50th year of operations.

DFRS chair Alastair Clarke explained: “We would so much appreciate any photographs which could be used in our book, illustrating our progress over the last fifty years, especially photos taken in our early years.

“We will of course acknowledge all contributions.

“We don’t just want pictures of our trains passing through the beautiful Forest countryside or at our stations, but people travelling on them, volunteers working on restoration, volunteer drivers, guards, signalmen, level crossing keepers.

“All these wonderful people have kept our railway running since the day our founding members clubbed together in 1970 with the vision of preserving our unique heritage railway.”

The railway, which is all that survives of the original Severn and Wye route to Cinderford, began operations humbly in 1971 on a short stretch of track in Parkend.

Ian Pope, chair of Forest of Dean Railway Ltd - the not-for-profit holding company for the railway - spoke of the progress the society has made in the 50 years since.

“We have enjoyed numerous landmark events over the last five decades, from our early days at Parkend, to creating our main operations centre at Norchard,” Mr Pope said.

“This had been the site of a coal mine and power station before we opened it as our main base in 1978.

“Passenger services on the Severn and Wye came to an end in 1929 but we extended our tracks back down to our southern terminus at Lydney Junction in 1995.

“The Junction is only a five-minute walk from Lydney mainline station and our tracks connect directly with Network Rail, which is such a huge benefit when charter trains take our tracks to visit the Royal Forest.

“We also often have Network Rail hiring our tracks to train their maintenance teams on new equipment.

“Another major event took place when we ran our first trains up to Parkend on Boxing Day 2005 with the Princess Royal officially opening it the following May.”

If you have any photographs of Dean Forest Railway over the years, contact [email protected].