Chairman’s Chat – Number 2, September 2022

By Neil Taylor

Hello again and welcome to my latest Chairman’s chat. This one is a little later than I had anticipated as unfortunately I have spent a few days in the “Covid Club”. Interesting historical note that the pandemic is still having a significant effect on many of our lives, however much we try to just get on with things.

That does link well to my first point. The fact that despite a global pandemic we have really managed to maintain great progress. This short conversation will concentrate on the preparation for the Warley show plus some other fund-raising opportunities.

 

The Warley Model Railway Exhibition

The Warley exhibition is the flagship of Warley Model Railway Club. The club has held and annual exhibition for more than 50 years and has occupied space at the NEC in Birmingham for nearly 30 years. Since 1995 the exhibition has had a full-scale centrepiece exhibit to add some further interest to an already enormous exhibition. To give an idea of size the exhibition will expect attendance in the region of 20,000 people over two days.

The Exhibition is at the NEC Birmingham on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th November and we have the honour of being the centrepiece loco for 2022 and hopefully we will do the project proud. This presents us an opportunity to raise some further funds. We will be hoping to raise money in three ways:

The Raffle

Something for everybody to appreciate and participate in, we will be raffling a scratch built ‘O’ gauge 82xxx model built by Chris Steel (a long-standing supporter). We will sell tickets over the two days at a very reasonable price that should attract both young and old. The draw will take place and the winning ticket announced by phone. I think that you will agree that the loco looks stunning and the winner will have a phenomenal prize.

 

 

Sponsorship

We are looking to purchase the final materials to complete the boiler. The boiler is looking like it has all the major component parts in place now, but there are many small components that still need to be manufactured. The most significant of these will be boiler stays, boiler tubes and flue tubes. We would like people to make a donation equivalent to the value of these components and we will provide a sponsorship certificate to the individual to validate their contribution to the project. We are looking for over 1000 stays and 143 boiler tubes (small tubes). For those with deeper pockets we need 18 flue tubes (Big Tubes) and a similar number of superheater elements. Prices for each item are proposed as follows:

• Sponsor a boiler stay £30
• Sponsor a boiler Tube £50
• Flue Tube components £150
• Fully Assembled Flue Tube £600
• Fully Assembled Superheater £1000

Membership Drive

We are still keen to get new members on board and we will be encouraging people to become part of the exclusive club of 82045 members. It would be great to have a new generation of members who may mature to take over from some of the older generations? It will not be a hard sell, but there will be several people on the stand over the two days, so if we strike up a good chat, folk will be encouraged to join us on a more permanent basis.

Also - come and have a chat

As a dozen of us are on the stand each day, it would be great to see some of our supporters. Drop by and see us and get the up-to-the-minute latest on progress and ambitions. The loco is starting to look very inspiring and I have an added motivation to get the job finished. Come and have a motivational “top-up”.

In a parallel universe – The other BR class 82xxx

Being a child of the mid 1960s my memories of steam on BR are few. However, my recollections of days spent on the end of platform 2 at Crewe are vivid. At that time if you had said class 82, I would wax lyrical about the Metro-Vic class 82 electrics. A rare beast indeed. I promise we may never talk of this again but the steam class and the electrics may have crossed paths in the early-sixties at Crewe. If anybody has a picture that would be a collectable!! The point being that neither example ever lived up to their planned life-times.

The class 82 electrics were one of several designs commissioned simultaneously by BR. This example was contracted to the Metropolitan Vickers division of AEI. They were actually built by Beyer Peacock at Gorton Manchester – how about that about that for another overlap with the steam era. Only 10 locomotives were commissioned and despite being very powerful and, by all accounts, a good loco they were too “non-standard”. This illustrates the nonsense of the BR drive for modernisation. Clearly if you contract 50 locomotives with 5 different companies you are going to have a lot of “non-standard” locomotives. Much has been written about this and I am not seriously going to add to the debate however, I think it makes my point that it is not only the steam classes that never had a fair crack of the whip. The electric class was withdrawn in 1983 after only 23 years in service. One example survives 82008, which was retained on ECS operations at Euston until 1987. Pete Waterman purchased the loco and prevented a similar fate to the steam class of 82. It is now owned by the AC Locomotive Group and is on display at Barrow Hill. 82008 meets 82008 – on the page at least.

82008 was photographed at Birmingham Snow Hill 1st September 1962. Photo: Horace Gamble/The Transport Library.