The great Gathering - UK Railway show

[Mouse]

Today and the weekend is a Railway show in Derby UK based in the old carriage works which today are part of Alstom group works. https://www.alstom.com/greatest-gathering

I will be there Saturday looking around in a skirt. Is anybody else going? We could meet up?

[denimini]

Damn, I would be there too, skirted, if I wasn't half a world away.

[Barleymower]

I would go but there's a family pilgrimage to the alps to celebrate my father in laws 80th birthday.
We land tomorrow evening at 10pm. I hope we can get to Geneva car hire by 11.30 or I'll be in trouble.

[Mouse]

I am in Derby in the Queue to get in, but I have made it. So far I am the only MIS I have seen!

[STEVIE]

Hi Mouse
A it's Derby, a blot on the landscape of a city, if ever there was one.
I'm biased, my wife's relations live there.
B the event is sold out so bit late too.

As a consolation if you do meet another MIS in that that place, I will sacrifice a virgin haggis in your honour.
Steve

[Kirbstone]

Now Stevie,

Please elaborate for the uninitiated, the process involved in actually sacrificing a Virgin Haggis ? I assume you'll have to go a good way North of Aberdeen to secure the raw material for this, because I have it on good authority that because of Global Warming, not a single Haggis has been shot South of Aberdeen for quite a few years now..........or am I misinformed?

Tom

[geron]

Please elaborate for the uninitiated, the process involved in actually sacrificing a Virgin Haggis ? I assume you'll have to go a good way North of Aberdeen to secure the raw material for this,

I take it you're alluding to the epitaph which runs thus:
Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Charlotte,
Born a virgin, died a harlot.
She was aye a virgin at seventeen,
And that's a rare thing in Aberdeen.

It must be apocryphal, because a web search finds so many different versions of the wording.

[Mouse]

I went to the Great Gathering celebrating 200 years of railways, from the 1st public railway opening in September 1825 between Stockton and Darlington. The event location was the Alstom Litchurch Lane Works in Derby. The area has been building railway rolling stock since 1840 and the actual site was opened in 1876, as the Derby Carriage and Wagon Works. The site is huge with great long carriage sheds with three traversers between each block, to allow movement of stock from one bay to another. In this vast site were many locomotives and full trains from all over the country and from different ages, from early steam to the latest electric trains.

You could walk and walk around the site from the working turntable at one end...

...to the collection of classic LNER steam engines at the other, including the Flying Scotsman, in BR green ...

...Tornado, a young steam engine, now 15 yeas old!

And the Sir Nigel Gresley in BR Blue.

Sir Nigel Gresley was the designer of the A4 Pacific locomotive that bears his name and of course another member of the same class "Mallard", is the fastest steam engine ever recorded.

There were many diesels and electric locomotives to look at, but these were my favourite set. I have not done justice to the range of equipment on show. There are many YouTube videos of the 200 Great Gathering that showcase the event far better than here.

I had a great time in the 6 hours that the show was open and I covered the whole site walking up and down the great long train sheds. One thing I particularly liked was the location with train tracks all over the place leading from building to building and the traversers were fascinating in how they worked.

At the end of the day on my way back to my car I took a shot of me in a park.

A passing young woman said she loved my outfit. All in all, I had a great day out.

[Mouse]

Hi Mouse
A it's Derby, a blot on the landscape of a city, if ever there was one.
I'm biased, my wife's relations live there.

The people I met in the town were fine to me and some liked my outfit!

B the event is sold out so bit late too.

There were only 12,500 tickets for each of the three days and they sold out very fast. I missed the initial sale and was only able to get a ticket when they released a few extra. In fact I had to buy at 9:00 on the Friday I came up to see you. I didn't think it was going happen, but as I stood on Peterbourough station waiting for my connection, I managed to nab a ticket on my phone.

As a consolation if you do meet another MIS in that that place, I will sacrifice a virgin haggis in your honour.
Steve

You can rest easy, no sacrifice needed. I was the only MIS that I saw and one of the very few skirts on display.

[Seb]

I would have loved to go as well, I'll have to look up one of those YouTube videos when I get back home.

[Mouse]

I appeared in JonesTheSteam's video posted on YouTube.

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxc58QF1ga5m ... al3A046Aqm

A MIS just minding his own business looking around the show!

[Barleymower]

That's funny Mouse just a guy walking past a train, ramdomly captured by the enthusiast.
BTW
My Birkenstocks arrived in black. I'm on holiday in Villars now wearing them. I walked 18k steps , 14km around, most down the moutain and my feet did not ache as much as other shoes I've worn in the past.

Screenshot_20250805_091944_Photos~2.jpg

[Mouse]

My Birkenstocks arrived in black. I'm on holiday in Villars now wearing them. I walked 18k steps , 14km around, most down the moutain and my feet did not ache as much as other shoes I've worn in the past.

They look good in black. I have walked a long way in mine, around London and my feet are very happy.

[Seb]

I appeared in JonesTheSteam's video posted on YouTube.

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxc58QF1ga5m ... al3A046Aqm

A MIS just minding his own business looking around the show!

That's a nice catch! I'll watch the entire video tomorrow.