A PEACE train has begun its journey from Chester Railway Station on a mission to gather correspondence calling for an end to nuclear weapons.

The train set off from Chester, with representatives from Chester CND, Chester Quakers, Chester Stop the War group and from Chester World Development Forum outside the station to hand over letters to the Peace Train people, and wish them well on their journey.

The Peace Train is a project of the Hereford Peace Council, to gather letters and petitions from peace and justice groups, and town councils, handed in at railway stations all down the Welsh border to take to London in a ‘mail bag’ to present to the Prime Minister and Parliament.

These will be asking the Government to become a signatory to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations, which agreed that nuclear weapons should be illegal, and that the process to eradicate them should begin.

Up to now, the Government has declined to send an observer, despite the increasing danger and cost of nuclear dependence.

The Treaty at the UN is the result of much work by ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. In 2017, ICAN was presented with the Nobel Prize for Peace.