Top Secret restoration base #2
After only three months at the first location, we were advised that the site was now sold for redevelopment & we had to leave by the end of December 1999.
Now getting facilities for this kind of project was not easy, however I knew of this building which had just changed hands.
God knows what the gentleman involved thought when he got my cold call.
However, he was very enthusiastic & sympathetic to our plight, saying that we could move in on a temporary basis. That temporary period lasted almost 11 years.
There was no way ‘Bon-Accord’ would have been restored without this facility. Alas it was a downright shame that the finished loco sat there for two years due to lack of a shed at Crathes.
The small fact that I had managed to arrange the use of this building was of course quietly forgotten & when some of us retired from the project, we were rather pointedly told to hand over our keys.
I collected my electric kettle just before they were due to have their knitting circle meeting & left.
This picture is from April 2000, ‘Bon-Accord’s frames had just arrived back from shotblasting.
I spent my Easter holidays painting the frames, matching the shade of green to a remnant on the inside face of one of the wheelsets.
The other parts of the loco & coach bodies were moved there one Saturday in December 1999.
Top Secret restoration base #2
After only three months at the first location, we were advised that the site was now sold for redevelopment & we had to leave by the end of December 1999.
Now getting facilities for this kind of project was not easy, however I knew of this building which had just changed hands.
God knows what the gentleman involved thought when he got my cold call.
However, he was very enthusiastic & sympathetic to our plight, saying that we could move in on a temporary basis. That temporary period lasted almost 11 years.
There was no way ‘Bon-Accord’ would have been restored without this facility. Alas it was a downright shame that the finished loco sat there for two years due to lack of a shed at Crathes.
The small fact that I had managed to arrange the use of this building was of course quietly forgotten & when some of us retired from the project, we were rather pointedly told to hand over our keys.
I collected my electric kettle just before they were due to have their knitting circle meeting & left.
This picture is from April 2000, ‘Bon-Accord’s frames had just arrived back from shotblasting.
I spent my Easter holidays painting the frames, matching the shade of green to a remnant on the inside face of one of the wheelsets.
The other parts of the loco & coach bodies were moved there one Saturday in December 1999.