New Sales Items now available

Small update on our sales stand items with 4 new items for sales via our website.

Our new Sweatshirt in Black

The new summer T-Shirt

The new "Keith Langston" book

And for those Badge collectors out there the new Locomotive profile badge in BR Green. Visit our Sales Page to purchase these great new lines. More news soon Gavin

Long time no post!

Firstly I would like to apologise for a lack of updates on here recently. This is due to moving house and the swapping over of the internet, which I now have back. So where to start....... Well back to march we go. We finished the gala at the West Somerset and headed off to the Great central railways 1960's gala. I went down on the Friday but forgot to take any pictures. On the Saturday of that weekend we also had a stand at the Belper model railway show. We then had a couple of days rest for until we had a stand at Both the South Devon railways double standards gala and the Nene Valley's Tornado event.

Here myself and Andrew are in location No3 for the weekend at the South Devon railway.

This was location No1. Unfortunately on the Monday we were completely rained out of the Marquee so instead we just sold raffle tickets on the Train. A huge thank you to everyone who helped out over the weekend.

So after another few days off we then had the Barrow Hill Fab 4 gala (7 weekends on the Run for my self by the end of SSS3)

Here John H-T, Katy and Andrew man the stand on the Saturday.

So on to what is going to be probably the biggest heritage railway gala of the year. Steel, Steam and Stars 3 at Llangollen Railway. Kirsten poses on what is one of the only pictures i took of the stand. Just like at the South Devon railway we were washed out but luckily there was platform 2s canopy to hide under. A Huge thank you to everyone who helped out over the gala as we manned both the shed and Stand for 9 days Straight!

Neil has cleverly created a centre piece which turns the chimney into a donations box next to the frames in the shed.

The Six brand new driving wheel springs are on show at Llangollen.

And the surprise of the week was some of our motion parts arriving on the Tuesday afternoon.

Another surprise of the week was when one of the coupling rods turns out to be off 5546 "Fleetwood"!!!!! So we actually have an original Patriot part which will be on the loco!! So all in all a fantastic month for the project with many new members signing up and lots of money raised. We have a very quiet May with only the Boiler launch on Saturday 19th to keep me busy, but then June will get off to a flying start with the project attending the NRMs Railfest. Thank you and hope to chat to you at an event somewhere in the country soon. Gavin.

From the Borders to Billy Butlins!

Well what a busy 7 days members of the project have had.

Firstly (on Saturday 10th march) 4 of us had a jolly day out on the Vintage trains "The Shap, Settle and Carlisle railtour". But no day out is complete without handing out a few leaflets and rattling the donations jar.

Here myself, Kirsten and Andrew are seen at Carlisle, where it was a great day for the photographers with no less than 3 locos in steam.

Here is a shot of Britannia (which as you'll see later does seem to be following me)

Here are our two fine ladies after a tremendous climb over shap.

Unfortunatly our double headed tour was about to be halved. The LMS let us down with Hot boxes and we were left with a solitary castle to do the job.








And what a performance she gave. Although the tour was cut short at Warrington as we had used to much coal being only one loco, and a diseasle took us the rest of the way.






So a week later and our sales team is back out to attend some Gala's with the A team at the Chasewater Spring gala and Myself, Kirsten and Andrew at the West Somerset annual spring gala.

Im afraid I have no pictures of the Chasewater event but i have plenty from the West Somerset.

Here she is again! So my affair with this lady continues from one end of the country to the other.

Also in steam is the fantastic Hall.........

........ a soon to be overhauled King........

........ and to make us feel more at home, Llangollens standard 4 tank.

And my final picture for today is of Kirsten and Andrew posing next to the fantastic Colin Wright's painting of "The Unknown Warrior". Of course these are available from our website at £55 pounds each.







Of course there are many other loco's in steam at this excellent gala, which will be continued this coming thursday till sunday, so come down and have a chat with us at Minehead station.
Hope to see you there,
Gavin Shell

More Fundraising.....

Well what a busy few weeks the sales team has had. Since the last update (just after the GCR winter gala) we have been to 3 other events.

First we attended the Keighley and Worth valley winter gala.

Here you can see (from left to right) Frank Richards, Neil and Karen Kinsey and Andrew Laws



Thank you to everyone who bought items and to the 3 new members who signed up on the day. Although there were another 3 who signed up later on in the week.



Secondly we attended the Milton Keynes model railway exhibition (sorry no photos as I was not at this event), and finally we have just been to the Churnet valley railways winter gala/steam weekend, which was an excellent gala with plenty of people either learning about us for the first time or getting more up to date with our progress.

On the Sunday we were in the warmth of Froghall waiting room

Where as on the Saturday we had to brave the cold but bright outdoors. As you can see from the picture the wind was quite strong in spells throughout the day.









On another note Neil Kinsey visited the Llangollen works during February and took a great picture of the Horn guides "in place"

There are now over 50 parts at Llangollen waiting to go on the frames to really get the project "rolling"













The sales team now has a well earned 2 week break till the next fundraising weekend, but you can of course still donate to the project via this link Donate Now

More info as and when it arrives.
Gavin

12 spring hanger assemblies and 4 cross stays complete

As has been well published in both the railway press and on internet forums, the LMS Patriot project plans to have a rolling chassis (well an 0-6-0) completed for July 2012. As you can see from the following pictures yet more parts have been completed.

Here we have the 12 completed spring hanger assemblies arranged in a rather artistic way.

If you want to be one of the first people to see the rolling chassis for "The Unknown Warrior", we plan to have it ready for our Members day on Saturday July 7th, so join today by downloading our membership form from Here (click me)

And for those of you with out a printer we will be at the Keighley and Worth valley winter steam gala this coming weekend, where you can join up on the day.

More news next time

Gavin

Great Central railway winter steam gala

Hello, well we have had our first weekend of fundraising for 2012, and what a weekend. We signed up 4 new members during the days, and hopefully some more people who took leaflets will also join us. A big thank you to the 3 members who bought down some books for us to sell on the stand, they very much boosted our sales.

Also we had a surprise over the weekend, when a gentleman came over to us and told us he had made a wooden replica of The Unknown Warrior and had it in his van at Quorn. He then bought it down later on in the day and said he can make more for people who want them, and donate the profits to the project

Here we have his Wooden on in LMS Crimson Lake on the left next to our Brass one in brunswick green on the right.







Also over the weekend Patriot project member and volunteer Neil Kinsey bought down an actual part for The Unknown Warrior, which was 1 of 12 spring hangers and spring hanger pins, and was made by his fair hands.

Finally a few pictures from the weekend

Here we have, from left to right, John Barrowdale (aka "Barney" to those who know him from the Mid Hants Railway), LMS Patriot Marketing and publicity Director Andrew Laws and finally new recruit Kirsten Shell






As per usual the weekend was full of fun and included another director, Richard Sant's usual time machine talk about our picture from the future. Were all now really looking forward to the next event at the Keighley and Worth valley railway in 2 weeks time. We hope to see you there

Gavin Shell
LMS Patriot project events manager

2012 Fundraising begins!

This coming weekend (27th Jan to 29th Jan) sees the start of our 2012 fundraising at Heritage railway galas and events, and what a way to start it. We're off to the Great Central Railway for their biggest ever Steam gala, with no less than 10 locomotives in Steam. Our sales stand will be located at Loughborough station in our usual spot next to the “Clan Project”. Please come down and say hello, make a donation or purchase one of our fabulous sales items. You can also join up as a member or donor on the day, which of course saves buying a stamp, to help support the building of “The Unknown Warrior”.
We hope to see you there and I hope to report on a great weekend at the Start of next week.
Thank you Gavin

6 Driving wheel Springs completed by Owen Springs

Six all new driving wheel springs have now been made by Owen Springs in Rotherham. These will be delivered to the Llangollen Railway Works to enable the rolling chassis, minus front bogie truck, to be assembled this year. Photo's by Oakwood Visuals.

Frame Stretchers arrive in Llangollen

During December 2011 4 of the 5 frame stretchers arrived at Llangollen ready to be fitted to the frames of 45551. This is a major step towards having the 6 driving wheels fitted to the frames, hopefully before our members day on 7th of July (originally the 9th June but that date clashed with Llangollen 150 so its moved to july)

Photo by Andrew Laws.

Some pictures of the Frame stretchers and patterns before arrival

Membership Matters!

As we start this New Year (Happy New Year to you all) I wanted to talk about membership. As everyone in the heritage scene knows, Tornado showed us all what is possible, many people giving small amounts soon adds up to a lot of money. For instance 1000 people giving just £5 pounds
per month soon adds up to £60,000 pounds per year + gift aid on top. We really need to get more monthly donors on board to help the project grow from strength to strength. What we have achieved in just 3 1/2 years is fantastic. But to meet our target of completing the engine by the end of 2017 (this gives us 12 months of testing before official naming ceremony) we need to expand our membership. If you're already a member then do you know anyone who can be persuaded to join the cause? And if you're not a member would you like to sign up? Remember when were built its our MEMBERS who will vote to decide the locomotives livery. If your interested in joining as a member please see LMS Patriot membership or if you would like to make a donation see Donate now

Cheers Gavin