The photos below were taken on Saturday 16th March at the Severn Valley Railway in Kidderminster. The RLS were holding their winter meeting at Kidderminster Railway Museum. The collection is displayed in a GWR built warehouse, dating back to 1878 - and a very impressive building it is.
Parked on the station forecourt was this rather nice Tasker steam tractor, together with a Dennis fire engine. I do not know anything about the Tasker, number, year built etc. but it was a very nice engine indeed. It is one of the gear driven examples of the Tasker 5 ton tractor. The rear wheel T rings are fabricated and a weld can be seen where the two pieces of metal are joined. I really like the green colour in which it is painted; is this a standard colour scheme used by Tasker's?
It was a good day out but spoiled by bad weather - patchy drizzle on the way and heavy rain on the return journey. There were two speakers at the meeting but unfortunately I wasn't able to hear the presentation in full from each - my need for medication takes priority and I left the room to sort this out. It was good to meet other engine people though and that alone made it worth making the effort to go.
Mid-afternoon, one of the railway locos decided to have a bit of a wobbly and split the points just outside the station. The fear was that whether it went forwards or backwards it would come off the rails. I thought about talking to a few of the onlookers and saying something along the lines of "...you don't get this trouble with road steam..." but thought perhaps not! In reality, the episode was quickly dealt with and the trains continued running.
Michael
