A well-known member of The Branch Line Society‘s fundraising team has received huge congratulations for being recognised in King Charles III’s New Year’s Honours List for his outstanding contribution to the voluntary sector.

Mark Bridel, who is a Regional Freight Manager for Network Rail‘s Eastern region, has been awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in recognition of his fundraising for Martin House Children’s Hospice, which provides free care for children and young people with life-limiting illnesses across West, North and East Yorkshire.

For over four years, Mark has been working with rail industry colleagues and The Branch Line Society to raise funds for the charity by running rail tours. Mark is in charge of the operational elements of organising charter train tours in aid of the hospice. That includes arranging the trains’ routes, planning the tours, and coordinating with train operating companies to make sure they run smoothly on the day.

Some tours visit unusual sites such as power stations, ports and quarries, and Mark and the team negotiate access with these companies so that the tours can run without interrupting their daily operations.

So far the team has raised nearly £200,000 for the hospice from running the tours, and plan to continue fundraising with a target of more than £100,000 over the next 12 months, to try and recoup some of the funds that the hospice lost through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mark Bridel BEM said: “It was a wonderfully unexpected and truly humbling surprise to be honoured with a BEM for my part in a small team who organise charity rail charters raising funds for Martin House. The circa £200k we have raised for the hospice over the last 4 years has been an exhilarating ride and we have a programme of charter trains planned for 2023 with which we aim to add at least another £75k to the total as a result.

“The ability to utilise the relationships built over the years within the freight team at Network Rail has provided an amazing conduit to open access to locations where it would not normally be possible to run a passenger train and this is the main driver for the fantastic totals we have been able to raise for the hospice with visits to the likes of Drax Power Station, Hitachi manufacturing at Heighington and many other facilities around the Eastern Region and beyond.”

Typically modest, Mark added: “The important thing to say here is that this might be me getting a mention but the team involved are much more important than any individual so this is for Jerry Dickinson who is the inspiration for the charter concept in the first place and the heart of the team, Kev Adlam of The Branch Line Society who puts the bums on seats and arranges so many other bits, the team who put timings together and all the others from the industry who I might lean on from time to time to get us into some strange places in the name of a brilliant and worthy cause.”