8E Railway Association by David Hawkes

'The Archaeology of Early Steam Locomotives' sounds a potentially forbidding title for a talk. However, Michael Bailey kept the audience at this month's meeting of the 8E Railway Association enthralled. He started his presentation by looking at Underwater Archaeology. Britain built large numbers of locomotives for export. However, numerous early steam locomotives were lost at sea whilst on their way from the UK builders, particularly to the USA and Canada. Closer to home he dealt in detail with one of the batches of locomotives lost off the coast of Islay on the west coast of Scotland. He talked about how the RAF Sub Aqua team were involved in diving on these wrecks and showed pictures of some of the items recovered, including sections of boilers and fireboxes and even the builders plates.

He then progressed to discussing locomotives in museums. He had been involved in researching and photographing these to provide material to enhance the various displays in the respective museums. Again this took him to the USA and Canada and also to several locations in Europe. In all these cases the locomotives concerned were built during the 19th century and provided a fascinating look at how early locomotives developed.

The next meeting is on Tuesday, October 13, in the Gladstone Club, Northwich, when Malcolm Dickin will be the speaker. For details see the website www.8erailwayassociation.org.uk or contact Paul Tench on 07790 486 735.