Updated 16/1/12

The CRC meets at St.Paul’s Church Centre, Rossmore Road, Marylebone, London NW1 6NJ. This is an attractive hall which offers a comfortable environment for our meetings. It is a short walk north from Marylebone station on the west side of the line. Rossmore Road crosses over the railway at the station throat. Bus routes 139 from Waterloo to West Hampstead and 189 from Brent Cross to Oxford Circus pass the door. It is outside the congestion charge zone and parking is free after 18.30 on both single yellow lines and meters.

Meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month except August - doors open 18.30 for 19.15 start, and there is a small admission charge to cover the cost of hiring the hall: light refreshments are on sale from 18.30 and during the interval. A selection of new and second-hand railway books is also on sale.

The June 2011 meeting started with a short ‘Boardroom’ session during which the finances of the London meetings were reviewed and the future programme was outlined (see minutes). Although the cover price of the CRJ is being increased, prices of season tickets, which include copies of the CRJ, are once again being held for 2011/12. At £22 by post or £20 for collection these are now even more outstanding value for 4 copies of the magazine and 11 meetings featuring a variety of foreign railways.

Our first meeting in 2012 featured the return of Tony Bowles (after an absence of about 30 years!). Tony is very much involved with the Restoration and Archiving Trust which has been set up to preserve slides of (mainly) real steam around the world. Portugal is a particular speciality and Tony has been able to incorporate the work of a number of photographers, some well-known others less so, to produce a digitised slide presentation with commentary. All narrow gauge lines in Portugal that survived into the 1960’s and beyond were given comprehensive coverage, mainly from steam days but with some dieselisation and post-closure pictures for good measure. More than 600 images were shown featuring a variety of photographers, locations and seasons and it is easy to see why Portugal was so popular with photographers. Our thanks to Tony for an innovative approach to the subject, and we look forward to his next show in April 2013.

Next month we move to India and the return of another former speaker-

Thursday 9^th February Geoff Warren - Steam in India: Metre Gauge Memories

Thursday 8^th March  Donald Wilson - Madagascar & Eritrea Revisited

Thursday 19^th April     Hugh Gould  European Steam in the 1960’s - (NOTE date)

Thursday 10^th May     James Waite Narrow Gauge the World Over - Steam in the 21^st Century

Thursday 14^th June   Richard Tremaine Japan from early steam to Shinkansen – a video presentation (NOTE - brief annual business meeting precedes).

Thursday 12^th July      Mike Bunn    A Tour de France by Narrow Gauge

2012 – 2013

Thursday 13^th September – Those were the days

     Hugh Ballantyne   – Germany and France in the 60’s (60 min)

         John Batts    – China 1976 (30min)

      Chris Capewell  – Finland (30min)

Thursday 11^th October Martin Robinson – Chris Gammell collection revisited in Europe

Thursday 8^th November Nick Lera  – Steam to the Arctic Circle A DVD presentation

Thursday 13^th December Brian Garvin – Back to the USSR

Thursday 10^th January Les Nixon – Around the World in 80 minutes

Thursday 14^th February Brian May – Romania

Thursday 14th March Keith Robinson – India “Assam to Kerala - Steam on 4 gauges”

Thursday 11^th April Tony Bowles – Narrow Gauge Railways in North & North Western Spain

Thursday 9^th May    TBA

Thursday 13^th June  TBA

Thursday 11^th July   TBA

2013 - 2014

Thursday 12^th September Ted Talbot – Steam in Southern Africa

Thursday 10^th October  Peter Lemmey – Steam in Southeast Europe – Includes Austria, Yugoslavia and Romania

The programme for 2012/3 is being prepared and offers of presentations are very welcome: anyone wishing to help is invited to contact Adrian Palmer (Email akpalmer@talktalk.net) who normally hosts the London meetings. Presentations can be for the whole meeting but shorter items are also just as welcome: note that the ‘Those Were The Days’ format of 20 or 30 minute features is being revived in September 2012.