The Midland Railway Society had a fantastic weekend at The Greatest Gathering and we have nothing but praise and thanks to the small but exceptionally hard working team at Alstom who pulled it off.
Over the three days we met and chatted with an incredible number of people on our stand – the breadth of interests and questions was quite astonishing and we can honestly say our volunteers enjoyed every moment of the event.
We were privileged to have been allowed to borrow a “You Are Here” model of the Carriage & Wagon Works from our friends and colleagues at Derby Museums. Normally located in the Assemblage of the Museum of Making this model was created in the early 1980s to allow visitors and new employees to orient themselves with the sprawling site. having been a museum piece for over thirty years, taking it “home” for a the weekend, was a wonderful opportunity. It formed the centrepiece of our stand and began a myriad of conversation. As well as allowing the large number of former employees of the Carriage & Wagon Works who visited us to point out where they worked and bring back (hopefully happy!) memories, it also allowed us to explain how the Works were originally laid-out for a Progressive System of Manufacturing, as well as to underline just how much of the 1874 site has survived and is in full-time usage today.
As mentioned in the last news update here, we considered ourselves to be the “home team”, and so it happily fell upon us to tell The Story of Litchurch Lane. Thus the backdrop of our stand was dominated by two large display panels (the printing of which we must once again profusely thank Alstom for facilitating) which provide a brief introduction to that interesting but rather longer-than-we-had-space-for story. Many of our visitors wanted to take a photograph of the panels to read later, so we are delighted to provide download links to both of them here (click the images below).
If you would like to dig deeper into the history the Midland Railway Carraige and Wagon Department and its Works at Litchurch Lane we have just the book for you. Produced especially to tie-in with our presence at The Greatest Gathering, we have reproduced a booklet written by Charles Henry Jones of the Midland Railway – a companion volume to our existing Locomotive Works title by the same author. Both are available from our Shop, priced at £4.95.
It is highly unlikely we will ever see anything of this nature and magnitude again, truly a once in a generation event, and we are all so honoured to have been a part of it.
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