Cheltenham
Meeting Reports
Tuesday 17th January 2012
Viva la Revolucion
Stewart Blencowe
On this occasion, at Cheltenham, another well known local member, Stewart Blencowe, gave us his talk entitled “Viva La Revolucion”. Stewart does not, (as far as is known!), have any anarchistic feelings, but this talk referred to his recent visit to Cuba, in which he showed slides of the present day scene, contrasting vastly with those taken on his previous visits. The present main industry of the island is now tourism, but nickel ore is mined in the Sierra Mountains and transported from El Entroque to Nikero. Of the large number of sugar mills in the past, 150 or more, only 30 or so now remain, and of these, only a few still rely on railways, which are now diesel operated. Some retain steam locomotives for the benefit of visitors.
Starting with a short geographical description of the island, the seventh largest in the world, and a potted history, we were taken on a circular tour, starting at Havana with its grandiose terminal station and elderly American cars. Not many cities have the equivalent of Barry scrapyard immediately alongside the Parliament building, but such is the case here. The engines are now arranged in a small park by the station.
The state railways, Ferrocarilies de Cuba, are now mostly worked by new Chinese diesels of which we saw several during the evening. Older machines, which looked like General Motors types, were either of Russian or Canadian build. (The railways serving the sugar mills are a concern under the name Minaz). There were a few elderly railcars around, some of Budd, or Brill manufacture, and much rebuilt in some cases. One of these had to be push-started out of Guantanamo--successfully as it happened!
What steam remains at the sugar mills is only used for visitors and this only fitfully. The once very extensive and scenic system at Raphael Freyre is now down to one small 1882 Baldwin which seems hard pressed to pull one carriage. A local passenger service using one small railcar took the party to see the “hospital train” — a white painted railcar containing a stretcher!. Stewart showed several views from his earlier visits of steam operation both at this mill and many others. There are several “potential” preservation schemes, but the engines looked very far gone.
The evening concluded with a look at the electrified line from Matanzas back to Havana—the Hershey line, founded by the Hershey Chocolate Corporation in 1919, only reaching Havana, in 1999.
Thank you Stewart for a most entertaining evening.
Tuesday 20th December 2011
A Pot Pourii of Spanish Railways
Don Gaunt
Our local member, Don Gaunt presented us, on December 20th with a talk entitled "A Pot-pourri of Spanish Railways”. He has travelled there quite extensively and they own a villa in Almeria. Actually the evening had rather a Franco-Spanish atmosphere, for we were shown a film on "The Little Yellow Train" which runs near the border, though actually in France. Although the stock has been refurbished, the track seemed in parlous condition, and the stations very run down. At the terminus there were neither refreshment or toilet facilities! By contrast, we were shown the trial runs (also in France) of the AVE, the Spanish high speed train, on which a speed of no less than 574.8 kph (about 359 mph) was attained. We were shown the construction of a tunnel in the Almeria area through which the high speed trains would eventually run, and some shots of Spanish stations, showing the very varied architectural styles. A series of slides were shown via the computer, on quite modern diesels, electrics and multiple units which will shortly become redundant, and a black & white series of rather woebegone steam locomotives, a few of which were in steam (4-8-Os and 2-8-2s), but the scenes at Valencia Alaameda, featuring the old Central of Aragon Garratts and Mallets left us in no doubt as to their future.
The final films featured the Mulhouse Museum and some preserved locomotives of Eastern European origin (probably Czech), and some mineral trains on the line to Samper de Calanda, in the north of Spain, (apparently taken by a rather glamorous lady photographer! ).
Two computer produced Christmas card themes concluded a very entertaining evening. Thank you, Don.
Tuesday 15th November 2011
American Wanderings
Gordon Davies (Society Vice-Chairman)
Our Speaker, Gordon Davies, visiting from Merseyside branch, started by saying that he had been a few minutes late for meetings in the past, but this time he was a year late, for which he needlessly apologised, for he had been billed to see us last December, when the meeting had to be cancelled due to very adverse weather!
His subject:- “American Wanderings” in which he gave us a very comprehensive coverage of pretty well the whole nation. Space precludes covering everywhere he visited or saw, but he started at Boston, where he encountered three diesels in the platform, side by side with adjacent numbers : 1126/7/8, and this he did not notice until the film was developed!
Other places seen included Dallas, where there is a suburban system with the title DART, (reminiscent of Dublin); New Orleans, where the tramway system suffered badly from Hurricane Katrina, (though the vintage trams, garaged outside the city on a higher level, survived and have carried on while the others are repaired); Chicago; Denver (transcontinental trains seen leaving here), Los Angeles; Seattle (where it always seemed to be raining!) and San Francisco, with its famous cable trams. There was a glimpse of the old liner “Queen Mary” at Long Beach, but the climax of the evening was surely the shots of the Tehechapi loop, with the inordinately long freights, one having no less than eleven locomotives at the head!.
Steam was encountered at the Georgetown Loop (since dieselised, apparently) Durango & Silverton ; Cumbres & Toltec; the Grand Canyon line, and an old 2-8-0 on a bit of revived Virginia & Truckee. Several museums were visited, where we saw a 4-8-8-4 “Big Boy” : a 4-12-2, and an inside shot of A4, 60008 “Dwight D.Eisenhower”. Numerous engines were seen “plinthed” in several places.
Gordon mentioned that many famous names, such as Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe; Baltimore & Ohio; Southern Pacific and many others have long vanished into limbo, though we did see a preserved SP “Daylight “ 4-8-4 in action, and one company still maintains the Santa Fe livery on its freight locomotives. The names Amtrak, Norfolk Eastern and Union Pacific were most frequently seen, though there are leasing companies with different liveries, one having the logo LMS, which caused some comments from the audience.
Altogether an extremely entertaining evening. Gordon has visited the States about 20 times in all, but most of these shots dated from 1993 apparently. He is worthy of a second invitation!
Tuesday 20th September 2011
2011 ERTMS on the Cambrian Line
Tony Crabtree
To open our new seaon of meetings we were pleased to welcome Tony Crabtree from the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) to speak on the implementation of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS).
Tony presented this very technical and complicated subject in an easy to understand form. Explaining the main reason for its introduction being to standardise on a signalling system across Europe and thereby reduce the large costs currently needed to fit multiple signalling systems to rolling stock required to travel across national borders. The ERTMS system uses two systems GSM-R mobile commications from the train to the signalling centre and ETCS for in-cab displays and train control. Tony explained that different levels of the system could be used without lineside signals thereby reducing costs and theft of equipment problems. One of the most impressive current uses of the system is on the Lotschberg Base tunnel where trafffic through the centre 12km single track section of the tunnel is managed by the system, which has led to much higher traffic levels compared with conventional signalling.
After watching a video of the system in action in Sweden, Tony answered all the members questions. With plans for the system to be extended in the UK as lines require resignalling or new lines are built, this technology is the future.
Tuesday 19th April 2011
Branch Annual General Meeting
This was the Branch AGM, and after brief reports of the year’s events, the existing Committee were re-elected en bloc, as in previous years. It was thought to be a great compliment to them. Steve Wilson remains in the chair, with John Hancock as secretary, Clive Davies running outdoor events and Paul Gearey looks after IT matters. Richard Morris stays as “Chancellor of the Exchequer” in addition to his duties on the Management Committee.
Some concern was shown that attendances were slightly down, and the number of library books borrowed was some 30 less. However, this was thought to be due to the cancellation through bad weather of the December meeting, the speaker for which has been booked for next November, all being well.
Post AGM entertainment was given by John Champion (Seven ages of a steam enthusiast); Colin Willats (Cuban scenes and relics in “wet Wales”); Stuart Blencowe (The last days of Gloucester Eastgate); Don Gaunt (Estonian scenes) and Richard Morris (Last years activities in the RCTS).
Tuesday 15th March 2011
By Steam to Darjeeling
David Barrie, Chairman DHR Society
A trip to India was the order of the evening for Cheltenham Branch on March 15th, when we welcomed David Barrie, Chairman of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society. Not too many years ago, the Indian Railway Authorities were all in favour of closing this famous scenic line—it did not fit in with their modernisation plans. However there was much opposition to this, both in India and elsewhere, until the tourist potential was eventually brought home. Consequently, the Darjeeling Railway Society was formed in 1997, and now has in excess of 800 members, and at present have a good relationship with the Railway management and staff, so things look a bit more promising.
In the course of the evening we were shown numerous slides of the line, past and present. Currently, the line is divided because of a severe landslip at Pagla Jhora (The Great Torrent), and tourist trains are at present operating only from Kurseong to Darjeeling. A limited service runs from Jalpaiguri to Siliguri and beyond, up to Tindharia Four modern diesels perform the lion’s share of the work, but up to a dozen of the famous “B” class 0-4-0ST are kept serviceable. Some experiments with oil burning have not proved successful and of the three new 0-4-0ST only one is being retained, the other two are to move elsewhere. Four “B” class went to a coal mine, and some have been plinthed. One is now preserved on the Beeches Private line in Oxfordshire (old No.778, preserved in the U.S.A for some years)
It may not be generally known, but during Word War Two, when many British serviceman were stationed here, mainly for recuperation, one 0-4-0ST was streamlined to look like a baby “Duchess”(or so they thought!!), to “remind the soldiers of home”. It was reconverted in 1945.
Thank you David for a most enjoyable evening, and for bringing those items,(books DVDs etc.) for sale
Tuesday 15th February 2011
British Steam Home and Abroad, Sound Cine Film from the 1980s
Terry Nicholls
At the start of this meeting, the members stood in silence in memory of Arnold Hogg, Branch Treasurer from inception in 1965 to 1978, who sadly died on January 31st, aged 79. Though unable to attend meetings for some time now, he will nonetheless be missed by those who remember him.
The actual meeting brought the well known Bristol member, Terry Nicholls, with a grand selection of Sound on Cine titled “British Steam, Home and Abroad from the 1980s” He brought five films, two featuring the Great Western 150th, (one covering Swindon to Gloucester, and the other Newport and the Welsh borders), Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and the Settle & Carlisle.
We had seen Pakistan locomotives, all British built, on slides, last November, but now we saw and heard them in action. Not all sounded as good as they looked, however, but they continued in service some years after. The Zimbabwean Garratts, all Beyer Peacocks, sounded very impressive in action, mostly employed on heavy limestone traffic.
The British locomotives were a grand sight, but of the engines we saw, few are currently active, and some, such as “Evening Star” and ”King George V” we shall never again see in action, nor “Duchess of Hamilton” in its non streamlined form. Other engines featured were “Hagley Hall”; “Hinton Manor”; “Earl Bathurst”; “Clun Castle”; 2857, 53809 and 75069, all seen in action at their best.
Thank you, Terry, a grand evening. Come again soon!
last updated: 21/01/12