Engineering

By Tony Massau

Little to report again except that Richard has been to Bridgnorth on a recent Sunday to do some machining of components.

We have been notified that our working parties on Mondays and Wednesdays can restart on August bank holiday week initially mainly at our outdoor site. This will enable us to continue preparations of the pony truck components for the move indoors ready for fitment under the loco. The cautious approach to the resumption of volunteer work is aimed at keeping the full time engineering staff protected as much as possible from the dreadful coronavirus.

2020 "Annual General Meeting"

By Chris Proudfoot

This was surely the strangest AGM I have ever had to record. The "closed" meeting took place without hitch on 20th August, and there are no matters arising from it.

Let's hope that we are able to resume normal service in 2021. To this end, I will be contacting David Postle at Kidderminster Railway Museum in the next week or two, and hope to report back to you in September's notes with a date for next March or April.

On a troubling note, about a dozen proxy voting forms have been returned to me so far, unopened and marked "gone away". In some cases, I suspect that this is due to a member's decease, and it makes us feel bad that we have been unable to mark this in any way. In the event that the reason is a change of address, may I please ask you to notify me so that I can pass on your new details to our Membership Secretary. Thanks!

Legacy

Leading on from the last paragraph, Alan Brighouse was notified by a firm of solicitors early in the month that a deceased member had left a legacy to the Trust in his Will. We plan to pay into the Future Fund. This is starting to look quite healthy, but we will commit funds to it only if members have specified that they wish their contributions to go to it; or if, as in this case, the money does not affect the build schedule for the locomotive.

Very sadly, it appears that the gentleman concerned had no family, so we are unable to express our gratitude for this unexpected windfall. I hope that doesn't sound callous: I couldn't think of a more suitable word to use.

82Xxx In Action

My Llangollen Railway friend Neil Evans has sent us this striking image of 82033 piloting a Collett 22XX 0-6-0 crossing the River Glaslyn between Porthmadog and Minffordd. We don't have a date for the photograph, nor do we know who the photographer was, so if anyone recognises the shot, please will you let Chris know so that it can be properly acknowledged.

Those of you familiar with the Porthmadog area will know straight away where the shot was taken, as the view - on your left as you cross The Cob on the FR heading for Blaenau Ffestiniog - remains unchanged. Only the motive power, alas, is no longer with us.

 

PS Apologies for the deley in posting this month, our Webmaster was hors de combat!