6 January 2023 ‘To Scotland for Steam’ by Brian Arman.

Brian split the Scottish Railways into two halves, planning to deal with the North British and Great Northern of Scotland Railway this year, and hopefully deal with Caledonian and the Highland Railway next year. Brian started by reliving his early childhood in Swindon reading Scottish railway books under his bed covers. He was fascinated by far away Scottish sheds and locos. We started at Carlisle and travelled to Berwick on Tweed. The first picture showed pre-grouping no 224 which is known as the Diver as it fell of the Tay bridge and was sadly the only survivor. We visited the Carlisle canal side shed and found mostly LNER locos. BR standards were mixed in as the fifties progressed, there were larger locos A3 Windsor Lad was at Edinburgh St Margaret’s and a K3 and J39. There were also locos of the Great Central design. There was an A3 and A2 on the Waverly Route and around Edinburgh. There were some shots of Diesel Class 20 and 40, the Royal train was also seen stabled. We visited to Forth Bridge where the fog was blocking the views heading to Aberdeen.
Brian then turned his attention to Scotland's smallest main line company railway, the Great North of Scotland Railway which spread north and west from Aberdeen, reaching its northernmost terminus at Lossiemouth. The GNoSR works at Inverurie were featured and Brian was proud to tell us that the Great Western had played a major role in their development, Swindon advising on design, layout, and workshop practice.
During the evening we had seen several hundred fascinating photographs taken over many years and featuring a great selection of steam motive power. The audience of over 50 gave a rousing round of applause and we look forward to part 2 next year