Wednesday 12 August 2015

Fund raising at the Vintage Transport Weekend

Fun at the Vintage Transport Weekend
Roy Miles arriving on his steam roller (nearly in SECR livery) on Friday afternoon Photo: Clive Emsley
We did little on the loco this weekend, but we did have an excellent weekend in the sunshine at Horsted Keynes helping to marshal the cars at the steam fair (we also provided bacon butties for the stewards!). in return for our assistance The Fenchurch Fund was permitted to have a sales and information stand on the show ground to raise the profile (and some money) for Project 27.

A great amount of interest was shown in the project and this also translated into sales and donations, especially on the Saturday.  We managed to sell a large amount of jams, marmalade and chutney, along with some tee shirts and badges.  A donation of books and maps was made to us on Friday followed by more books on Saturday, many of which we sold, thus not having to find storage for them!

The heading picture shows Roy Miles and Oliver Warburton arriving on Roy's Aveling and Porter Steam Roller "Monarch" which he drove from Edenbridge to the show on Friday afternoon.  Roy was a well respected senior driver on the Bluebell until he recently retired.  He has an intimate knowledge of No.27 having driven and worked on it many times over the years.  As you can see the roller is in an approximation of thye SECR livery tat No.27 carried in service at the Bluebell until 1974.

There will not be any progress reports over the next couple of weeks or so as I will be away from the railway on a world tour of the British Isles!  I hope to see how it is done on the  Strathspey Railway, the Bowes Railway and at Beamish on the way back, and possibly Shildon, but we will have to see on that one!

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