Friday, September 04, 2009

Historic setting for a friendly encounter

The world's longest continuous running steam railway, the Tanfield, is in my council ward. Most of the line itself is now a footpath rather than a railway. The bit at Marley Hill that continues to run trains is a tourist attraction as well as a heritage centre.

The whole length of the line from Pontop Pike to the Tyne at Dunston, Gateshead, is now featured in a book and dvd called "Like Taking Coals to Newcastle", produced by Sunniside History Society, based in my home village. They had a repeat launch of the dvd today (I couldn't make the first one because, ironically, I was meeting some historian friends of mine two weeks ago). It took place at Beamish Museum, which is in Co Durham, but near Sunniside.

The guest speaker was Government Chief Whip Nick Brown MP. Among the guests was Dave Anderson, Blaydon MP, with whom I had a friendly word, at the tram stop as we waited amongst the American tourists for a 1923 built tram to whiz us around the Museum! It beats having to get a National Express train to London on a Monday morning!

Anyway, I am back home now. If you are a Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate, watch out for the pre-conference edition of Parliamentary Campaigner coming your way soon. I'm working on it now. (I'm fitting in the work between going to the allotment, editing videos and salting my runner beans!)

1 comment:

Chris Walker said...

Hi Jonathan, We are holding out big steam gala at Tanfield Railway over the next weekend.

This is one of the biggest steam events on Tyneside, we have two visiting locomotives and variouse trade stands and model railways http://www.trgala.co.uk shows the full line up.

If you would like to attend please contact me on 07872900783 or c.wal@tiscali.co.uk

Regards

Chris Walker