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Thanks for the welcome and good wishes.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone on the forum.
John H-T - I visited the EVR last year and must say that the 03's and 37075 looked superb in their sparkling blue livery (my era was the early 1980's!). I must say I was extremely impresssed with the line, rolling stock and your friendly, knowledgeable staff. I will probably visit again in 2009.
In answer to DSY011's question - I don't think that there are many steam shunters left however we are primarily concerned with diesel shunters. We also have a few industrial (not ex-BR) shunters in the collection. We do have steam 3183 (on loan to the NRM at Shildon) and 3188 (at Rowsley) and if any others were made available for sale we would consider them rather than letting go to the scrapman.
The problem with small engine preservation is that most enthusiasts contribute to the big engine societies (tractors, grids etc) and forget, or ignore, the small engine societies.
We have a small but loyal membership of about 80 individuals but only a handful of people who actually work on the engines and we don't have oodles of cash to throw about due to the low membership figures. That is why restoration takes so long and everything is in a queue. We do hope to have D2139, 12061 and D2866 running in 2009 and work can then start on the next ones in the line up.
Regards
Brillo
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