It's been a cold & wet day at Apedale, but despite this, a hard band of MRT members still managed to turn out and progress things at Apedale. More work has been done on the buildings, and yet more wiring has gone into the G class Simplex. It now has broadly the same functionality as the Starship Enterprise.
The continuous rain brought to mind a memorable Moseley event; this was the Tin Turtle event held at the Ffestiniog's Minffordd yard over May Day 2005. A Tin Turtle is a Motor Rail loco built for service in World War One; dependant on the type, these locos can carry a body which resembles (some say) a turtle.
The FR event brought together four of these charecterful locos. These were the FR's own Mary Ann - MR596, MR435 which had been repatriated from St Kitts a few years earlier, Leighton Buzzard's MR1377 , and the Moseley Railway Trust's MR1369. All the locos spent the weekend shuffling around Minffordd yard to a lesser or greater extent; Mary Ann did decide to explore aspects of parts of the trackwork which are normally frowned on for most locomotives. Despite the wet & cold weather, a good time was had by both visitors and participants. The photo was taken from the FR's cherrypicker, and shows MR1369 on the diamond, facing MR1377. Mary Ann is top right, MR435 bottom left. 280 years of railway history in one photo - not bad!
Interested? Contact us here and find out more. Who knows, one day you could be participating in this sort of thing!
