‘Members’ Presentations’, 6th December 2022
For our end of year meeting we always have a members’ presentations evening and with a small attendance of just 16 there were 5 people with items to show.
We started off with Paul Clifford, a life member who has been living in Saudi Arabia for many years but is now back home and he showed some early shots of his youth around Toton with ‘Peaks’ and Cl.20s among the many there at this large depot, then to a one loco depot which was the Brean Miniature Railway [now closed]. We moved around and the highlights were a Cl.207 at St. Leonards, a DB ICE Train 3 at St. Pancras, early scenes at the then Yorkshire Dales Railway with a Bagnall 0-6-0, moving back to industrial scenes around Toton, a row of disused Cl.60s at the depot, the well-known pyramid of locos at Vic Berry’s scrapyard featuring Cl.25, 26 and 27s, a Cl.141 when about a year old at Darlington, then an old Waterloo & City train looking quite dirty and old, but now preserved at LT Acton.
Just as a taster of Saudi Arabian Railways [before a Watford Branch presentation in the future] we saw some action from there. We started with the Mecca Metro which features a few 12-car trains which only run ONE WEEK per year, this during the Hajj where a few Million people are moved on this 18km line. The Riyadh Metro is being built and will have 6 lines, the daft thing about it is that apart from Lines 4 & 6 which will run sharing some track the other lines are all independent of each other and made by different builders, bit daft really. We finished with some SAR locos.
I was next up with some photos and videos form this year’s Pontypool & Blaenavon Railway Steam Gala on 9th September. A couple of worn out Cl.37s were stabled. We also saw Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST ‘CALEDONIA WORKS’, GWR 0-6-0PT 7714, Hunslet 0-6-0ST ‘JESSIE’, NCB Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST No.7 ‘WIMBLEBURY’ finishing with a journey from Big Pit Station to Furnace Sidings Station filming from the front of the Engineer’s Saloon being propelled.
Other Committee Member Rob Freeman was next, and we started with GWR150 at Caerphilly Open Day with newly into service Cl.150 001. Highlights were 87006 at Berkhamsted, the APT and two Cl.25s at Tring Summit where we saw quite a few different trains including DMUs and Diesel locos in charge during the time of the OHLE being down. ‘DUCHESS OF HAMILTON’ was seen on a railtour at Appleby and Garsdale and a great shot of a full-up Laira Depot on Boxing Day.
After a break of sausage rolls and mince pies served by Lizzie we had South Essex member Geoff Brockett with various photos of his trip on the ‘Great Britain XIV’ railtour. We saw ‘DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND’, ‘BRITISH INDIA LINE’, ‘SCOTS
GUARDSMAN’, ‘LEANDER’ and ‘BAHAMAS’, all in charge of the tour with shots at Perth, Stirling, Inverness, Carlisle, Exeter and Penzance among others.
To finish the evening Bernie Holland showed some older photos from the mid-1950s which featured last day railtours, ‘Dean Goods’ No. 2516 at Womborne, Abergavenny to Merthyr, and last trains at Bangor [for Caernarfon], Bethesda, Llanberis, Cheltenham St. James, Chipping Norton, Brecon, Moretonhamsted and Dowlais. Our final shot was DB Pacific No. 001 073-6 at Koblenz in full steam.
A good evening enjoyed by all.
Rob Davidson, Branch Secretary