Electric Railway Museum to Close.

And so it begins...........

The ERM clearout has got underway. Seen on their fbook page today that the 506 cab has left for its new home with the south wales cab group.

 

From one "collecting" site to another.

 

Temporarily yes,

The plan is for I to go to the south wales cab group for the time being. Then when they're ready the woodhead railway heritage group have plans to display it at either guide bridge or dinting. The south Wales cab group are planning to reglaze the cab & make it watertight & weatherproof again.

 

Guide Bridge didn’t impress me as a potential memorial site when I last went through, while Dinting doesn’t exactly have a spotless record for preservation success.

I’ll stick with the previous view, sadly.


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No I agree with the statement about dinting, it's not had the best success in the past & is still being considered as to whether the WRHG (aka woodhead railway heritage group) Will reopen it or not.

Remember at guide bridge they've only got permission about 3 months or so back from northern to use the station buildings & develop it into a visitor attraction. So things will obviously take time, I respect & understand your viewpoint however I think they'll do well & give it a safe home. I'm not sure what condition the interior of the cab's in but maybe there's an option of restoring it?

 

Crewe Heritage Centre has offered a home for the APT Power Car and is currently raising funds by way of a crowd funding appeal to pay for the transport costs from the ERM to Crewe.
This can be found at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/apt
The intention is to restore it externally first of all then to open the vehicle for public access with the various panels removed and replaced with Perspex and descriptive displays to allow viewing of the internal components. The move will hopefully be early in 2018 and it will be appropriate that the Power Car returns to Crewe as 2018 marks the 30 anniversary of the APT arriving for preservation at Crewe Heritage Centre. The Centre is planning a major celebration at the beginning of August 2018 for both the APT and also the Class 47 D1842, which is also celebrating 30 years in preservation next year as the first of its class to be preserved. Over the winter period the Class 47 will have some work undertaken on the bodywork and a full repaint into original livery and this will be carried out in the former LNWR Heritage boiler shop which will be reverting to use as the Centre's own workshop following the departure of the former tenants at the end of January.

 

Christ that makes me feel old...!

 

You should worry - as I was driving home last night I had the radio on and Chic were in concert on Radio 2. They played their first release, and Nile Rodgers said it was released "forty years ago today".

And I remember it so well...!

Is it really 30 years since the first 47 went into preservation...? Eek.

 

Apparently the mass exodus should be starting soon according to andy rowlands who's involved at the ERM.

The headshunt is currently being ripped up, also hastings coach & the apt power car are leaving before xmas to allow the big low loaders to get on site & start shifting stuff to enable them to have a chance of being cleared off the site by the end of march.

 

But apart from the Steam crane, everything has a new home?

 

I think they are just changing the logo
From ERM
To EMR after the squatters have gone that is

 

I believe everything except the following have new owners according to andy rowlands who's involved with ERM:

501 - Says the owner has been pretty quiet thus far & he doesn't know much about where it's headed for

4SUB 4732 - Heading for a private storage location where the owning group are planning to do a full overhaul of the unit & I believe hopefully return it to passenger carrying condition again.

2HAP 4311 - The group of the Blaenau railway in north wales appear to be struggling to raise the funds needed to purchase the unit. Andy has said that there's other groups waiting in the wings if it isn't sold.

 

Very little actually has a new owner. Most of the items on site are not owned by ERM and it is just a case of the current owners continuing with the projects at new homes. The exceptions to this are one of the 309 sets that has been sold to the Lavender Line and The Heysham loco which has been transferred to the group that owns the 307/308 & 312. As you say the HAP is subject to a private sale as the current owner has decided not to continue with it. It will be sold to one of the interested parties in it this year.

 

For the benefit of those of you who follow these things, both the 307 and 308 vehicles departed the site today bound for a new life at the Colne Valley Railway.

 

I can't remember exactly where i've seen it but was on fbook last night (fri) there was a comment from the 414 preservation group saying that they've got a private investor onboard to help secure the 2HAP & it's supposedly moving off site early in january. The station building i've been told is destined for the battlefield line, signalbox dunno yet where it's heading but would come in useful for another pres line looking for a box somewhere like the ecclesbourne valley railway did by taking on the ex oddingley box.

 

Is the crane likely to get a new home?
What size is it?

 

Luke is well known in these parts for presenting supposition and "I read / heard that a train driver's friend's cleaner's cousin's dog said..." as fact.

Ah, Facebook. That most reliable source of hard, factual news, verified by Reuters. Maybe.

 

I know full well that nothing can be taken as concrete until the group themselves or ERM make an announcement saying it's got a new owner. I'd never take anything of facebook as remotely reliable.

The only person I know who gives me reliable gen on the ERM fleet is andy rowlands. He's IIRC a trustee there & quite heavily involved as he's helped do the restoration work on the 307 coach & is a working group member of the south tyneside EPB group. The 414 preservation group will hopefully be successful in their bid to purchase 4311, some of the other bits will end up at private locations for the time being, the SUB 4732 won't be seen i'd imagine for a while apart from updates provided by the owners until they've restored it.

 

I know nothing about cranes so can’t help technically but I have been involved in putting the current owner of the steam crane in touch with a potential buyer so all looking good for it to go to a new home.

 

Andy is the magazine editor for the ERM Supporters Association, he’s also one of our Team Tyneside volunteers, but not a trustee. He’s a great bloke so you can trust any gen he gives you.