The Greatest Gathering

The Greatest Gathering is all finished now.  After the hard work preparing the displays, it only took an hour or two for all bar the biggest items to be taken down and removed.  It has been a great three days, talking to the visitors and explaining the significance of the George in terms of its technical advances, and of course the reason for the Union Flag and bunting we put up to mark Prince George’s twelfth birthday just 12 days ago.  The banner to the right of our front end shows the link to the naming of the first of this class of LNWR locomotives after Prince George’s great-great-great grandfather.

Our display was sandwiched between two LNWR Society stands, the one to the right showed several 5 inch gauge live steam locomotives and wagons.  We greatly appreciated their presence and the mutual assistance, helped by most of us being members of both the Trust and the LNWRS.  We must also record our thanks for the sterling efforts of Jamie Keyte in helping prepare and transport our exhibit.

Most of our flyers advertising our project were distributed, and we have won some new recruits to help us along.  In the best railway tradition, our Engineer made contact with former colleagues, and renewed acquaintance with other groups, including another 4-4-0.  On Saturday night a group of 10 made up mainly of our own team and Advanced Steam Technology Trust Supporters enjoyed a meal at our Engineer’s local pub.

It has been a very tiring three days, but very rewarding and we feel very privileged to have taken part.

Our Engineer will be taking a break during August, so there will be no more postings for a while.  We look forward to completing frame assembly in September, and certainly there will be posts about that.