Friday 22 November - Clun Castle

Breakfast this morning was at an ethnic place close to the tram stop at new Street station. The food was good and they were very attentive.

We had an interesting walk through the markets in the Bull Ring area

We bought our tickets to Tyseley at Moor Street and caught an earlier train which was a good move. We found the locomotive works alright and were lucky enough to meet a lady volunteer coming out who explained that Matthew Self was not available this morning as he had been called away but made a phone call and gave us the code to get into the place. Turned out the code had been changed but we eventually found our way in and were given a very warm welcome. 

Bob Meaney took a lot of time going over what they were doing at the works. He has a wealth of wonderful stories.

We walked through the works past a number of locomotives in various stages of restoration or rebuilding. One of the most interesting was a Grange 4-6-0 which was being reconstructed from various donor locomotives – the Granges were all scrapped by British Railways.

Clun Castle, 7029, which I had come specially to see was not in steam and we spent some time in the cab. It brought back memories of the one time in 1965 when I rode on Clun on the 1615 Paddington.

It was an impressive visit and we happily made our way back to Tyseley station only to find that there had been an incident of some kind and there were no trains running back to Moor Street.  However, our tickets were accepted on local bus no. 4 and we made it back into New Street.

After a drink we made our way in the rain past the canal basin and took a look at the Public Library. Another drink at a pub close to the canal then back to New Street for a snack.

The trams are being tested on the new section from New Street to the Public Library.  This section is wireless and the trams were working on battery.

The Polar Express was running this evening using a Class 5  (54304) The staff let us on to the platform without a ticket and we watched a large number of small children, many in their pajamas having a good time. They all get a mug of coco, a cookie, Santa visits and they are told the story of the Polar Express

 Walked 21500 steps today

Click here to see all pictures taken at Tyseley