April seemed to be a very long month, with so many events taking place and so many comings and goings associated with them.  We will see this, in part, continue over the next few weeks as the opportunity has arisen to greatly enhance the June Power from the Past weekend (we now have four of these per annum – March/June/October/November – chosen where possible to enhance the calendar and not clash with other events) and also the July Somme commemorations plus sustain some photo charter work to defray the costs of transporting these items etc.  We will announce what they are shortly…

Below: Jonathan has covered the latest industry news elsewhere on the blog, so here are a few transport images taken by Eric Garrod over the Old King Coal weekend, by way of rounding off the festival coverage.  We see No.18 shunting the GW bogie bolster to remove four I beams that had supported the ice rink chiller unit.  These were chained to the buffer stop then the wagon removed from beneath them!  The wagon has now moved to a new home at Alnwick, part of the Aln Valley Railway developments there.  The other guests have departed but in two weeks new ones will arrive – more on this shortly, but the WW1 theme continues as we have increased the scope for the Museum’s Somme commemorations in July (see main website) and will also benefit from their presence (and something else quite special) for June’s ‘Power from the Past’ (the 11/12 June and featuring whatever we can muster on the transport side plus visiting engines on rail and road…).

Below: A gallery of images from Eric Garrod showing the closing weekend of the Great North Festival of Transport 2016…

Next week the blog posts should return to the more usual format, catching up with the Transport & Industry team’s work across the Museum…