The Blandford Railway Club,
which was recently formed and is based at the Blandford Museum, is helping
to raise funds by holding an Audio Visual How on Friday the 30th of
November, to which Shillingstone members are invited, details below.
A little background.
You may remember that a
couple of years ago, Dave Cash and I organised a Railway Show in Blandford.
Following on from that, it was decided to hold a large display in the
Museum, all about the old station, using all the material that was on
display at the Show.
This has lead on to building
a working "OO" gauge layout of the Blandford Forum station area including
all the buildings, which is situated upstairs in the Museum. The layout is
now well under way. To fund the continued building of the layout and because
of the local interest, it was then decided to form a railway club, which has
now started to meet on the first Monday of each month at the Museum.
The audio visual show.
As far as Brian House is
concerned, long gone are the days of showing a few slides and talking about
them. Brian now shows slides through a digital projector via a laptop. The
slides which now fade in and out over each other, also have a full
commentary and musical background. Brian will show during the evening a
varied sequence of programmes and not just about railways. These run from 5
to 15 minutes each and the show will include, BR 9F Locomotives, Concorde,
Cwmystwyth - a copper mine, Southern Steam, Poole Harbour, Spitfire, Western
Diesels, The Red Arrows, Voyage along the Nile and Duchess Pacific's. Brian,
who is a Wimborne Railway Society member, has been putting on his shows
around the Bournemouth Poole and Dorchester areas for many years. Believe me
when I say they just keep getting better and this show will certainly be
well worth coming to see.
As
the museum is only small, the show will take place in the United Reform
Church Hall at 7.30pm on Friday 30th November and will run until around 10pm.
Refreshments will be served during an interval in the show and these are
included in the ticket price of just £2.50, all proceeds going to the
Blandford Museum Railway. The church is situated on Whitecliff Mill Street,
which is up the hill on the old road going north out of Blandford town
centre. Parking is available at the church and in a public car park nearby.
For those who are
local to Blandford, tickets are available at Shillingstone Station on
Wednesday's, Saturday's and Sunday's.
Also at the Tourist Information Centre, Greyhound Yard, Blandford and Jeans
Newsagents, 22 Market Place, Blandford. For those further away, tickets will
be also be on sale at the door on the evening.
We look forward to seeing
you there. Graham Kelsey.
Thanks
to Syd for the photos, we have some pictures for you showing the excavations
between the platforms in preparation for ballast and track to be laid. There
are also some of the trenching work in operation in readiness for the water
supply to be connected. 
