New Build Locomotive (Scotland)

First please allow us to apologise for the extreme lateness of this update.

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It would seem that 2022 has decided not to be nice to everyone, and has delivered further difficulties for us all to enjoy! With a national coal crisis affecting our industry, as well as the cost of living and general energy rises beyond most incomes, times are indeed becoming difficult for all. This has indirectly affected our plans, as the cost to cast the wheels has jumped, in line with other resources; we have decided to not chase the extra cost, but to ring-fence the funds for when the markets stabilise. The original cost for the wheels has been reached, and we can claim the funding a success, we are just going to sit and wait before committing to the order.

In other news, we have also been contacted by a supporter who is working at Boat of Garten station. They have offered us a small area to display our plans to construct Ben Alder, this will aid us in reaching out to a wider audience and hopefully help attract further support. The management team are also hopefully in the closing stages of securing a semi-permanent home; this would enable us to build a base and storage facility, as well as full fill our obligations to help educate people with regards to engineering and social changes that have taken place in the last 100+ years.

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For those who may be interested, the Highland Whistle we acquired late last year has been given a light clean. This has revealed some numbers stamped on the base, a quick piece of research indicates that if it’s a builder’s lot number, then it may have originally come from a Castle class. Although we will never know for certain!

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We must thank the back room boys and girls who are working away, their hard efforts unfortunately are not delivering huge flag waving results. The results when finalised will be immeasurable to our final goal, they just lack any great fanfare for all the effort required.

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