Railway & Transport Club

We meet at 7:30 pm (new time from January 2023) on the 3^rd Tuesday of each month, except July, August and December.  Contact: John Soer or Jim Dunning.

The Club has over 40 members and enables men and women of all ages to share their common interest.

We meet in the Bradbury Centre of the Methodist Church, in Rose Street (Peach Place), where members enjoy a wide range of good quality presentations on transport topics, including heritage and steam railways, with the opportunity for refreshments and time for a chat.

Note meetings are at 7.30pm in the Bradbury Centre Hall.

In October Graham Bilby entertained us with a number of transport films.  He began with film he had taken in the summer of 1990 in Poland.  Much of the film was taken in the vicinity of Krakow, and included trolleybuses as well as trains.  Then in 1991 Graham was in Lisbon where he concentrated largely on the tram system.  It was noticeable how narrow and steep some of the streets were.  Some of the very old trams still run as a tourist attraction.  Graham ended the evening with film taken in this country, beginning with the trolley buses in North London, mainly those based at the Colindale depot.  It is a great pity those quiet vehicles were ever replaced by fume belching buses.  Then there was a look at some of the Colonel Stephens Light Railways such as the Kent & East Sussex and the Basingstoke & Alton lines.

Photo: One of the ‘heritage’ trams which operate route 12 in Lisbon, with a more modern vehicle behind.

In November we held our AGM for 1925 which began with a warm welcome to Rev. Wes Hampton, our new President, who chaired the meeting which followed the usual format.  Among the various points covered were: an increase in average attendance, a sound financial state; an increase in the donation to the church; and a donation of £60 to the Railway Children Charity; and the election of two new members to the committee.

The second part of the meeting consisted of short presentations by three members.  The Chairman, John Soer, opened the batting with a selection of some of his favourite slides which took in St Anton in Austria (see illustration), Switzerland, Germany and Romania.  Of note among material from England was a photograph taken in the 1950s of Rev Jack Charlton the minister at Primitive Methodist Chapel, in a village where John grew up, standing in a disused station watching two coal trains.  He was a keen railway enthusiast.

Ralph Phillips, our secretary, followed with a tour of Scotland, beginning with a visit to Thurso in the far north of the country which was followed by a trip along the West Highland Line.  A visit to Edinburgh where we saw slides of a number of trams was followed by a visit to the Forth Bridge, with a number of photographs taken from the down platform at Queensferry station.

Then John Harrison looked at some of the challenges and the opportunities presented by the Settle & Carlisle railway line.  He pointed out the usefulness of the line when Avanti trains used the route when the West Coast main line had been closed in the previous January.  Although British Rail had reduced the amount of freight using the line, a test train had recently run from a quarry near Horton-in Ribblesdale.  John then discussed the effect of extreme weather on the line, with particular reference to a recent landslip at Eden Brow.

On 20^th January we welcomed back Cliff Perry MBE whose chosen topic was ‘Review of Rail Safety’.  To do justice to Cliff’s presentation would require several pages, so what follows can only be a very inadequate summary of a very detailed talk.  Cliff began by outlining his career on the railway.  He then went on to give examples of causes of accidents such as signals, track, wheels and people.  But he made the point that the UK is the safest of the ten largest railway systems in Europe – five times better than France and ten times better than Germany.  Clive then went on to describe the processes by risks have been well managed in this country.  Among these is ‘Wheelchex’ which measures the impact of wheels on the rails, so leading to fewer broken rails and accidents such as that at Hatfield.  The crashworthiness of trains has been improved by improvements in the way coaches are coupled together and simple measures such as using laminated glass in windows and central door locking.  As before, Cliff’s talk was full of technical detail but presented in a very entertaining manner.

John Soer

During the past year we have enjoyed a wide-ranging programme of talks with an average attendance of a little over twenty.  Some that come are not Church members, but all enjoy the chance to chat to others in a safe environment before the meeting and during the interval.   At each meeting old magazines and books are sold, the proceeds being donated to the Railway Children Charity.

John Soer