Graffiti attack at Aln Valley Railway causes thousands of pounds worth of damage
An appeal has been made after trains at a heritage railway were targeted in an overnight graffiti attack.
The incident happened at Aln Valley Railway’s Lionheart station in Alnwick on Friday night, with vandals targeting two of its Pacer units.
Aln Valley Railway general manager Mark Hayton said: “The Pacer units which have been damaged have been the focus of extensive restoration and maintenance work by volunteers – and one of the trains was in the final stages of a complete repaint when the graffiti attack occurred.
“Volunteers responded immediately after the initial shock of discovering this mindless vandalism and began a clean-up operation – however the damage to the fresh paintwork means that the surfaces will need to be rubbed down and repainted.
“In addition to the extra hours of painstaking work, specialist paint and painting equipment will be needed, adding to our costs.”
Aln Valley Railway chairman Michael Proctor added: “The Pacers are an important part of our operation, allowing us to operate trains on quieter days in the calendar and to support school and community group visits.
"Many hours of volunteer work, not least from our young volunteers group, have gone into restoring them and the whole community at the Aln Valley Railway was shocked to see the damage caused. I am proud though of the way that our volunteers have responded to the attack. Work started on cleaning up the mess within hours of discovering the damage.
"Anyone thinking they can get away with such destruction needs to understand that the railway is well protected by CCTV and we always share any images of trespass or criminal damage with the police.”
Officers from Northumbria Police have attended the scene and footage from site security cameras around the Lionheart site is being checked.
Anyone with information can contact Northumbria Police via 101 with crime reference 26000413999 or can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or via crimestoppers-uk.org.
In the meanwhile the AVR Trust has set up a Go Fund Me page to help cover the costs to repair the damage: https://gofund.me/6cc3e674a
Volunteers have been working to restore the Alnwick to Alnmouth branch line over the last 14 years and eventually hope to link up with the East Coast Main Line at Alnmouth.