P L E G - Preserved Locomotive Enthusiasts Group

Our future events can be viewed on this page, and while this list may not be extensive, please rest assured that much is going on behind the scenes. It is a fact that the events that PLEG attempts to organise are at the harder end of the organisational spectrum. If they were easy to organise, other groups, or the railways themselves, would have already organised them in the past. A lot of what we attempt to organise meets with various stages of resistance in the process, but rest assured that we do our utmost to persevere, and only come to a dead end when, disappointedly, a railway basically says 'We are just not interested!' That is of course a shame for us, and for them, as we would never propose anything to a railway unless we believed the railway would make money from the event. At this moment in time we are currently working on, or involved in, proposals with a number of different sites. We don't know as yet which of these proposals will go through to a 'live' event, but you will find out about it on this website first. And don’t forget, PLEG still has a 100% record – everything we have ever advertised to work at one of our events has produced on the day! You can view our past events by clicking here.

PLEG is disappointed to say that we have to admit defeat with trying to arrange an event at Carnforth. It would appear that they have no appetite for us to visit whatsoever, and we respect their decision. It has also come to light that due to the current status of the Class 03's it is unlikely that they would have been available to haul a passenger train anyway. PLEG is still extremely keen to run a charter at Carnforth, and if the situation changes we will try again, but for the moment we have reached a dead end. Sorry for any disappointment this may cause, we are gutted because we needed the rods too!!

UPDATE 28/05/07

Repairs on the 08 continue, but we are pleased to hear that 08631 should take part in the MNR's next diesel gala (September 22-23). This being the case PLEG will not be chartering the rod, but encouraging our members to attend the gala. As a back up, should 08631 need to leave the line for contract work before the date of the gala, we are advised that the loco is subject to a contractual period of notice, thus we will hopefully be able to whip in with a last minute dot com charter should the need arise.

This event has unfortunately had to be postponed until a new date can be arranged. 08631 is now out of service awaiting some spare parts which are not due on the railway until the middle of May. As soon as the 08 has been repaired PLEG will endeavour to re-arrange this trip with the railway and the new date for this event will appear here.

Thank you for the many e-mails registering your interest in a trip behind 08631. A date of Bank Holiday Monday 7th May 2007 is going to put to the MNR, I must stress that I only mention this to enable those of you that are interested to put a note in your diary, the details have yet to be discussed and certainly nothing has been agreed or confirmed yet.

The provisional plan is to have 08631 work a full line length one way trip on passenger stock with a Class 31 dead on rear just after the normal service has finished. 31538 will then drag the train back up the line Dereham. The MNR website states that 47596 will also be in service that day, see http://www.mnr.org.uk/services/traction.html

PLEG is very grateful to the MNR for providing us with an opportunity to ride behind 08631.

PLEG has kindly been asked if we would be interested in possibly chartering the use of 08631 at a preserved railway this summer. Now we are conscious of the fact that 08631 worked t'n't with a kettle at one of the Cambridge gala days but if there is enough interest out there we would certainly like to take up the offer. So if you would interested in whipping in 08631 please send an e-mail to tractor_37404@hotmail.com please ensure that you put 08631 in the title of your message. Many thanks.

Following PLEG’s successful visit in May 2005 we are planning a repeat trip to the Royal Deeside Railway in Scotland during late 2007. The trip will feature haulage from the Class 03 (03134) and the Class 14 (D9551). To register your interest and for further details please send an email to new_events@pleg.org.uk. This tour has had to be postponed from out originally planned date in February due to problems with the availability of the Class 14 and suitable coaching stock.