20th June 2019 · Members’ Presentations

The meeting held in June was the last of the current seasons of indoor meetings which comprised of presentations by branch members. Austin Hughes led the way be describing the complex railway layouts and scenes around Birmingham noting how things have changed since 1948.

Telling of activities based on the GWR and Midland railways much was to be seen of steam day traffic through the favoured locations of Snow Hill station and Tyseley. New Street movement centred on traffic from both the LNW and Midland Railways, and photographs taken from the spotter’s favourite locations suitably described all that was to be observed. Illustrative filmed clips interspersed within the presentation enhanced the story. A fine compilation of images shown by David Wilkinson was the second showing of the evening which recorded a photographic journey taken through the railways in North Wales. This commenced with scenes taken on the standard gauge Llangollen Railway before migrating to the narrow gauge systems of Bala Lake, Talyllyn and the Llanberis Lake Railway with its slate quarry incline. Interesting action on the Welsh Highland featured two of their superb Bayer-Garrett ex-South African locos.

As a final presentation of the evening Tom Ickringill put up a show of slides taken between 2005-2009 featuring steam activities on both main line and preserved railways. Special diesel traction of some significance was also built into the programme. By way of something different a most notable feature nicely illustrated the Cass Scenic Railway in Virginia USA, where an array of Shay, Climax and Heisler logging locomotives were all to be seen in action.