Gala Weekend
10/11 July 2010

Our visiting locomotive this year was "Darent" from the Eynsford Light Railway in Kent. "Darent" is a heavily rebuilt Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 which was similar to "Dougal" on the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, Mid-Wales.

Unfortunately Darent suffered injector problems on Saturday morning and despite Ken and his team working their er - socks off (they stripped down the injectors three times to try and get them working) sadly Darent saw no service at Amberley. Anyway, on Sunday the loco was put on display and so at least the photographers could get a few pictures.

Our thanks go to Ken Jackson and his team for their sterling efforts. We hope that they will be able to come back to Amberley sometime and have another go.

The ELR does not appear to have a website - but there is a good piece of video on YouTube here. Don't get too carried away though - make sure you come back here afterwards please!

Gala Weekend also saw the return to service after a long period of inaction of our Fowler Resiliant diesel loco "Peldon". Two of our engineering volunteers went right back to basics with the engine timing and got it all up and running. Dave Bentley, whose father Doug masterminded the original restoration in the late 1980s, was really pleased to see the loco back in service and needless to say that's where he spent most of the weekend.

And now the pictures