The Coronavirus pandemic continues to circumscribe our scope for making progress in most aspects of the Project’s activities, but I’m very pleased to be able to report that we are not yet, at least, at a complete standstill.
Although all work at West Shed has ceased, HBSS continue, on a reduced work-basis, to work on the boiler cladding. Further work has been approved, but will be on hold until HBSS can return to full-strength operations. Whilst at Leaky Finders, work on the tender frames should be completed imminently. A number of components - the dome and cover, heater-header and bracket, reverser assembly, among others, have been completed and are ready for delivery to West Shed from various contractors as soon as conditions allow.
This Bulletin is dominated by how the Coronavirus emergency is impacting on the project.
We are pleased to say that our partners at HBSS are at the time of writing continuing to work on the project, making steady progress with fitting the stays and working on the cladding assembly. Elsewhere, the dome and cover have passed their safety tests, but it is likely that the shut down will prevent transportation for machining and then return to HBSS.
We would like to inform our Project Members and website visitors that, because of the Coronavirus emergency, our Stafford Office premises are closed until further notice to our volunteers, who are doing everything they reasonably can, by working from home.
We are seeking to make special arrangements to manage post delivered to our office address, but this will result in processing delay.
Should you need to mail us, please use this temporary address:
Our finances received a welcome boost in the quarter ended 31 December when income exceeded the combined total of the previous two quarters despite our being asked to repay a large short-term loan, plus interest, at the end of November. Our particular thanks go to two members who provided short-term loans totalling £70K, which were in addition to the best quarterly total for one-off donations for 12 months, amounting to £85K. We very much appreciate this demonstration of members’ confidence in our ability to finish the job – your generosity makes us more determined than ever to justify your support.
The LMS-Patriot Company has receievd the HRA award for Communication for its Members' magazine 'The Warrior'. The annual event which is dubbed "the Oscars of Heritage Rail" was held in Birmingham on 8th February and was attended by societies, heritage railways as well as new build and heritage projects who were awarded for their achievements during 2019.