A Travelogue and a Bruce Oliver Retrospective

The late unavailability of the booked speaker for our May meeting led to a last minute change to the programme with substitutes being provided by our colleagues at the Chichester Branch.

The first part of the evening took the form of a travelogue by Ian McKey who recalled visits to Scotland where matters of interest at the places visited were of more importance than trains. At Paisely Gilmour Street, for example, he studied the station furniture. Wemyss Bay is noted for its station building. Further north visits were made to Thurso and Wick, the latter having connections with Thomas Telford and a Lowry painting of the steps. Ruabon in Wales was then visited, followed by trips to Hereford with its Edward Elgar connection, Shrewsbury famous for its signal box and being the home of Charles Dawrin, and Scarborough with its funicular cliff railway.

The second part of the meeting was a presentation by Roger Sandford using slides of the late Bruce Oliver. Locations in the south of England visited included the Isle of Wight in the 1960s, and the Hayling Island branch. Elsewhere, visits were made to the North West of England to Hest Bank and Morecambe, the Settle & Carlisle line, the Blyth area of the North East of England, East Anglia, and the now closed station of Glasgow St Enoch. Most of the trains illustrated were steam hauled, but Bruce was not afraid to embrace diesel and electric traction with slides including Class 76s on the Woodhead route and 2-Bil and 3-H units on his local services in the Portsmouth area.