AGM + Members’ Presentations

AGM Followed by Members' Presentations

A good number of members turned out for the April meeting which opened with the Branch AGM.  Political matters were rapidly dealt with as informative reports were given by the Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer.   The existing committee was re-elected for a further year.

The evening’s entertainment comprised of presentations from Branch members commencing with David Wilkinson who illustrated a recent visit made to the Talyllyn Railway illustrating action with their operational steam motive power and a tour of the Pendre workshops.  This was to be followed with some excellent black & white images of steam day traffic taken by Roger Hepworth in and around his home town of Ossett telling of the frequent summer excursion traffic.  Wakefield was covered in some depth and viewings at other local West Yorkshire areas along the Calder Valley route superbly described activities in the latter days of steam.  Post interval slide show presentations were the feature of the second half beginning with Tom Ickringill who illustrated steam on the Cass Scenic Railway in West Virginia principally featuring Shay logging locomotive motive power.  Several action shots of American freight traffic were also to be seen.  This was followed up with views of preserved main line steam in Scotland and, in some depth, along the Settle & Carlisle line extending to areas around York and the northern hinterland.

In a totally different vein Bob Green offered an array of modern-day scenes taken across parts of East Anglia whilst John Holroyd nicely rounded off the evening when showing long lost tram and trolley bus photographs in and around Yorkshire and Blackpool. Glimpses of industrial motive power taken around a number of northern collieries plus the glass works at St. Helens enhanced the scope of the material.  He further added to the delights of the evening by presenting some of his beautifully constructed hand made models of a number of buildings on the Cromford and High Peaks Railway.

Thanks to all of the presenters for generating such a varied evening of internally generated entertainment.