Evening all...Wow its been a while since I last did this.. Today saw me back down at the Burton Model Engineering society, the 8th time that I'd been down since the lockdown restrictions were lifted in June, however today's visit was for the annual 'Summer Steam Up' held on the bank holiday weekend in August, today saw a total of 7 engines in operation throughout the day, with a mixture of both steam and diesel outline battery locos.
My day started at a slightly later time of 9am, waking up and getting dressed before collecting my lunch that was in the fridge, before getting ready to cycle into town to the club, however just 10 minutes away from home, I noticed I had a flat tyre and had to ask my sister to bring the bicycle pump to me, so I could pump the tyre up.. Tyre pumped up it was time to set off once more. I managed to misjudge how long it would take me to cycle down to the club and arrived a little earlier than planned at 11am, which meant a 30 minute wait till someone else came to open up the site.
At around 11:30am, one of the other members Mike, who turned up to unlock the gate before driving onto the club site, with me following on my bike. After a brief chat, I began helping to open up the club house and containers, fetching hose pipes out that we'd require for the afternoon, we were quickly joined by Mike's wife closely followed by the club secretary David.
After helping Mike to unload his two locomotives and riding trucks onto the ground level steaming bay, David began helping Mike to light up his new steam locomotive which he bought before the lockdown. With several other members now also onsite including: Jim, Will, Roy, Howard, Adrian, Michael & Phil, and with several other engines now slowly being steamed up. I decided to get out my video camera and start filming ready for another YouTube video, the link for the video can be found here.
Locomotives of interest to me were the BR Blue Class 37 owned by Adrian and his son Michael, as well as a LMS Ivatt 2-6-2 tank engine, both can be found in my video, other locos that sadly aren't featured in the video are a 2-6-0 tank engine 'Rosie' & a GNR Stirling Single 4-2-2 tender locomotive.
After a few attempts to raise steam and now with the assistance of Roy, Michael eventually steamed his 'Sweet Pea' locomotive and spent roughly an hour running it on the ground level track.
After several enjoyable hours down at the club, with people now slowly beginning to pack away their engines, I decided to call it a day and after saying various good byes to people, I headed home. Thank you to everyone who made the day enjoyable. Cheers all.. Jake..
Please note any views or opinions expressed in this blog are merely personal and do not in any way represent the views or opinions of any other person, group or organisation.
