Branch AGM + My Travels in 2025 and more.

Today’s meeting welcomed John Tigg of Milton Keynes branch as our speaker with his presentation “My Travels in 2025 and more”. It was quite obvious that John’s passion was with narrow gauge railways, starting with a visit to the Ffestiniog Railway for their Platinum Jubilee Weekend. John spent some time there as we saw several of their specials that ran over the weekend, including double-headed trains and a freight-wagon passenger train.

We also had a couple of visits to The Statfold Barn Railway. Then back to “full size” with a visit to The Great Central for their Rail 200 Open weekend running 73156, a Deltic 78018 & 019 among others. This trip also visited Rothley carriage works. On to “The Great Gathering” at Barrow Hill and all that had to offer with special liveries in abundance and the new Class 99001.

We also went to the Members Weekend at Beamish where we saw photos of the pit village and fair ground along with the vintage trams, buses and then to Locomotion Museum.

After tea we spent more time in John’s local area on the WCML at Leighton Buzzard and Bletchley plus the East-West rail link. John had photographed many of the special Charters, special liveries and anything unusual using the WCML.

A fascination afternoon for our members, who had sat through the Branch AGM to start with.

Dave Elsdon,

Branch Secretary