Saturday was the Annual General Meeting of the Moseley Railway Trust. Once again, this meeting allowed the Membership to hold the Trustees to account using the mighty sword of Democracy and the Equally Mighty Shield of Accountability. Despite which, it all passed off quite amicably, the biggest debate being of a columnar nature. The AGM is traditionally followed by Member's Playday. This year, we put a bit of effort into this, and the Engineering department made the fatal error of seeking requests as to which locos people wanted to operating. Needless to say, the most obscure and difficult to extract from the shed are always the one wished for. Still, the People have spoken. The ex-Ireland Ransomes & Rapier loco "Ghost" had a prolonged outing. This loco has rubber tyres fitted to improve grip, which gives a rather unsettling feeling of imminent disaster at each and every set of points. Opportunity was taken to run the loco with the three peat cars which accompanied it when it returned from the Emerald Isle, and also on trackwork from the same peatworks.
The World's Slowest Railtour was a strictly member's only trip which toured most of the system, including the new Field Railway. This train used a newly arrived manrider and two unusual locos. The petrol Orenstein & Koppel Class MM displayed the truculence only to be expected of petrol locos, but ran nicely when it finally started. The yellow Hudson loco Chaumont showed off its 3 1/2mph top speed in fine style. The photo runpast was more of a photo crawlpast.
Next weekend we all have to start behaving properly again, as Easter Saturday will be first public operation of the 2015 season - it's the Great Easter Egg Hunt. It'll be steam all three days using the Joffre. Hopefully see you then? As ever, get in touch here.
