RAIL enthusiasts can reminisce about the trains of Tweeddale this summer after funding was secured for new interpretation boards.

Innerleithen Community Trust is one of seven groups to have benefited from the Borders Railway Celebration Fund.

And the £1600 they have been given will allow for four new railway heritage boards to be placed along the Tweed Valley Railway Path.

Chairman Ross McGinn said: “The boards are all railway related and will show how it benefited the local area when the former line was in operation.

“The boards will be worthwhile additions to this popular path which we help maintain.” The railway arrived in Innerleithen in the early 1860s as the first stage of a line connecting Peebles and Galashiels.

Innerleithen Station was officialy opened on October 1, 1864.

And the railway served the town for a further 98 years before its closure in 1962.

The former line between Peebles and Innerleithen was transformed into a multi-use path for cyclists, walkers, joggers and horse-riders in 2013.

And the four new boards will be strategically placed along the five-miles route.

Another group which has benefited from the Borders Railway Celebration Fund is the Probus Club of Innerleithen, Walkerburn and Traquair.

They have been granted £600 to pay for a celebratory trip on the new Borders Railway for 60 people aged 60 to 90, many of whom regularly used the old railway in their youth.

Funding of up to £2,500 is still available to non-profit making voluntary and community organisations, community councils, schools, public bodies and places of worship.

The project does not have to take place in the days around the opening of the Borders Railway on Sunday, September 6 but they do have to be completed by the end of next March.

Leader of Scottish Borders Council, Councillor David Parker, said: “I would encourage community organisations from across our region to apply to the Borders Railway Celebration Fund.

“The application process is simple and projects do not need to take place on the same weekend as the railway opens.

“It is evident from the projects we have funded so far that we will support a wide variety of schemes and I expect to see many more get involved.” Other groups who have benefited from the first round of funding are Galashiels Academy Parent Council, who were awarded £2,477 to create a ceramic mural to displayed in the town depicting Galashiels as it was during the last railway, Langlee Support Centre with £490 to organise a celebratory event, Scottish Borders Rape Crisis Centre with £2,500 to host a railway-themed ball for service users and the community, and £3219 for Tweedbank Primary School for the refurbishment of library space to create a Reading Station, complete with railway signage, railway themed furniture and books.

Heriot-Watt’s Student Union has also been granted £1,728 to host an exhibition which will be held in the same week as the Borders Railway opens, displaying railway-themed print design.

To apply for funding contact SBC Grants Co-ordinator Linda Cornwall for advice.

The application form and the guidance for the fund can be downloaded from www.scotborders.gov.uk/railwayfund.