I have to share with you something from the program for this event.
The following is an account of Rowland Emett's railway. His cartoons form the theme of the years Great Brtish Train Show.
THE FAR TOTTERING & OYSTERCREEK RAILWAY
The Far Tottering and Oystercreek Railway which serves the Cloud Cuckoo valley links Far Tottering to the sea at Oyster Creek, calling at Wisteria Halt, Friars Fidgeting, Abbots Grumbling, and Wastecote Fancy. There is a section which is now disused, the Witch Hollow loop, which served Hangdog Heath, Stygian Halt, and Duckwallow Marsh. As nobody ever went there, this branch was abandoned.
More recently a coastal section was extended to Dog-fish Point and Smugglers Reach. The main business is now taking bird watchers to Tottering Woods, hens and pigs to Fidgeting Market, and excursions to see the paddle boats in Starfish Bay on Saturday afternoons. There are only three engines now in service: Nellie, Neptune and Wild Goose.
When the coastal section to Dogwood Point was opened, Neptune was put to work the service, it was rather hurriedly constructed, mostly from bits of the paddle boat 'Comet', which had been set upon by limpets and drifted ashore at Smugglers Reach, a total wreck. It was popular with fishermen and smugglers, who were delighted with its ship shape apperance and the odour of rum-and-steam which accompanied it.
The Directors were terribly put out when other railways started their air services. They thought the best thing they could do was to have one of their own, and in consequence 'Wild Goose' was put in hand, but was not altogether an unqualified success. It DID once taking wings at Duckwallow Marsh, but got mixed up in a gaggle of pin tail geese, and so it had to be shot down.
But Nellie is the pride, joy and bulwark of the F.T.&O. The Directors believe she incorporated all that is best in railway practice. There is absolutely NO nonsence about her. Flying engines, nautical engines, and such fiddle-faddle, may come and go at the whim of whosoever is the engineer at the moment , but Nellie will always remain the solid bastion upon which is reared in one form or another, all that is most delightful and desirable in prime movers.
In an age when other railways seem to be getting drabber, the Directors earnestly hope that the example of Nellie will be taken well to heart, and that perhaps there will be a return towrds engines whch, besides transporting the body, will have some-thing in mind for the eye and mind.