Colleagues,
Apologies for a 'hefty' post that is not SMJ related but is for charity and surely of interest to any railway enthusiast!
Some of you may remember last year I told you about the opportunity to travel on the SMJ by a Branch Line Society Charity Trip. These are now becoming the vogue for the BLS in partnership with various Train Operating Companies. They normally work by all the BLS fare box and other fundraising activity being donated to the nominated charity. The TOC provide the train free, all the staff are volunteers and Network Rail waive track access charges. I was on one of these last week and it raised £18000 for the Railway Children charity!
I attach an application form for anybody who might be interested in going on the next one from Norwich, you will see there is some very interesting track.
It might be that I could tempt you to join the Branch Line Society, details at http://www.branchline.org.uk/
If you a regular participant of the various trips etc you will soon recoup your £27 per year for
the Electronic copy of the bi weekly magazine. I do know there some other interesting trips, at least one relatively local in the pipeline.
Regards
Dave Hayward