Railway Allsorts

The guest speaker at the Solent Branch for their February meeting was Ken Mumford who gave a presentation shown under the title of Railway Allsorts. Ken is a Welshman, so it was perhaps natural that the first half of the evening was spent looking at coal trains and the railway network from Penhros Junction heading to the extensive yards at Cadoxton and Barry Docks. Barry is synonymous with Dai Woodham’s famous scrapyard where Warships D600 and D601 and North British Type 2 D6122 (or was it really D6121? - see Diesel Dilemmas) could be seen amongst the large number of rusting steam locomotives.

Ken then showed a miscellaneous selection of slides with audience participation encouraged to explain what was being illustrated, for example the derailment of 35020 “Bibby Line” at Crewkerne in 1953, the train heating unit converted from Metro-Vic D5705, the Lyme Regis branch, spotting books, magazines and signs from the 1950s, and “Spooner’s Boat” sail power on The Cob on the Ffestiniog Railway.

Ken was thanked for his talk which was is recommended for other branches.