Trust News

Trust News

Events leading up to and after the death of our past Chairman, Paul Hibberd, have caused an inevitable pause in progress. We are working with Paul’s family on a tribute to his efforts on the Trust’s behalf, and this will appear in due course.

We are now getting established with a strengthened team of Trustees, and we have updated both the Charities Commission and Companies House with the details. Other actions we have yet to complete, not least getting control of our bank account. Our online data repository has been recovered, and we are getting to grips with its contents.

It is hoped that by autumn we will be able to restart procurement of material for our locomotive. As ever, this will be expensive and will be dependent on our discovery of the funds available. Trigger warning: an appeal for donations is likely! On the plus side, the Trustees hope to introduce a form of recognition of donors, as other new builds do.

We are hopeful that next summer we can exhibit our locomotive at a very suitable site for an LNWR locomotive.

at the LNWR Society open day at Kidderminster on 30^th July, our chairman Derek Buckles and Engineer Terry McMenamin gave a presentation and answered questions on the project.  We should be able to provide more details of our plans shortly. It is always an enjoyable day, thanks to the efforts of the organiser Ted Talbot. An added bonus is the chance of taking a ride on the SVR, which will be operating on the day.

Volunteer Appeal

Our team needs building up to have the skills, strength and resilience to design and build a new ‘George’ for Main Line and Heritage operation. We can benefit from any willing volunteers, but we specially need ones to:-

• Produce the documentation for the Trust’s Quality Management system to ISO 9001, covering planning, design, procurement and assurance and other areas. Implement the system, training our team. Periodically carry out internal audits.
• Implement Assurance processes: review of LNWR drawings against those for new manufacture; identification of key dimensions and characteristics; produce pro forma inspection sheets; list required contractor documentation for finished items and compile evidence folder to support the Approvals process.
• An experienced engineer to assist our present engineer. Access to Solidworks CAD would be an advantage. Understanding of Risk Analysis and RSSB standards would be helpful, but we can help with guidance on these.

These activities are vital if we are to obtain approval for main line running. While these are volunteer jobs, we do need evidence of qualification to carry out these tasks if we are to meet the requirements of the Certification bodies. If you are working towards qualification in any of these areas, succeeding in volunteer work for the Trust could help as evidence to support your future career, and we would be happy to provide that evidence.

If you think you can help, please contact our engineer Terry McMenamin by email to mcmenaminterry@yahoo.co.uk or by phone on 07985 003281.