THE BRITISH OVERSEAS RAILWAYS HISTORICAL TRUST
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PRESS RELEASES
February 2020
DR MICHAEL BAILEY MBE APPOINTED AS PRESIDENT OF BORHT
We have the honour to report that Dr. Michael Bailey has accepted an invitation to become President of the British Overseas Railways Historical Trust (BORHT). Dr. Bailey was the Chairman of the Trust at the time of its Mode Wheel museum and tourist railway project at Manchester, and put in a great deal of work to organise that project and gain creditability for the Trust. When Mode Wheel was lost to Peel Holdings, he looked at a couple of other possible locations including Vulcan Foundry, without success.
Dr Bailey is an expert on Robert Stephenson and has done a number of pioneering archaeological investigations of early steam locomotives. He was awarded a D Phil by the Railway Studies Institute at York. He was created M.B.E. in 2010 for his services to industrial archaeology.
Dr Bailey’s appointment was in time for the 35th anniversary of BORHT’s incorporation on 9 November 2019, when he gave a presentation to a joint meeting of BORHT and the Stephenson Locomotive Society on British-built Steam Locomotives Down Under.
For more information about BORHT, readers are recommended to our website, www.borht.org.uk.
Note for editors – An electronic version of this press release can be found on our website. Editors requiring more information, please see our website or email borht.org@gmail.com
January 2020
35th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BRITISH OVERSEAS RAILWAYS HISTORICAL TRUST
The British Overseas Railways Historical Trust (BORHT) was 35 years old on 9th November 2019. BORHT was incorporated in 1984 for the purpose of establishing a museum to tell the story of our railway export industry. This was to be at Britannia Park, which collapsed financially shortly after opening. Although the museum was lost, over 35 years BORHT has built up a library and archive which has become a respected historical research resource visited by researchers from all over the world. The library and archive are at Greenwich, but we are looking for larger accomodation. preferably with space for a museum.
BORHT publish The British Overseas Railways Journal, an historical journal devoted to our export railway trade in all its aspects from hardware to people.
BORHT celebrated our 35th Anniversary with a joint meeting with the Stephenson Locomotive Society at which our new President, Dr Michael Bailey, gave an illustrated talk on British-built Steam Locomotives Down Under and Dr. Oliver Owen and Seun Ajagunna gave a presentation on Research and Restoration in Nigerian Railways. This was followed by dinner at Carlucios in St Pancras Station.
A recent project by a BORHT team has been the writing of the 400 page book British Military Railways Overseas in the Great War (published by Mainline & Maritime), which covers all theatres where British troops built and/or operated railways in the 1914-19 War.
BORHT has helped a number of organisations to repatriate British built locomotives from abroad, SPS Class 4-4-0 and GL Class 4-8-2+2-8-4 Garratt at MOSI, and the Sentinel steam railcar at Quainton Road and we own a 60 cm gauge 4-wheeled diesel.
For more information about BORHT, readers are recommended to our website, www.borht.org.uk.
Note for editors – An electronic version of this press release can be found on our website. Editors requiring more information, please see our website or email borht.org@gmail.com
August 2017
THE LUNATIC LINE - TWILIGHT OF THE METRE GAUGE
BORHT will be hosting a meeting on Saturday 18 November 2017 to review the metre gauge in East Africa in the light of the opening on May 31 this year of the first section of the controversial Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) which is planned to link Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan. This first section closely parallels the old metre gauge "Lunatic Line" which links the port of Mombasa with Nairobi, which was built by the British in the first years of the 20th Century and used 4000 hp British built Beyer-Garratt steam locomotives.
The review will be a presentation of slides by the noted East African railway specialist, Geoff Warren, and DVD's by Nick Lera of Locomotion Pictures. The meeting will be at the Model Railway Club, Keen House, 4 Calshot Street, London, N1 9DA (near Kings Cross Station) and will run from 15.00 hrs until 17.30 hrs.
To some people the SGR is a worthy successor to the title of Lunatic Line as the railway has cost US$3.6bn, 90% financed by China Eximbank, a loan which, commentators fear, Kenya will be unable to repay.
These profiles of the British West Coast main line and the line out of Mombasa, both drawn to the same scale, show the challenge which the British engineers overcame a century ago.
Geoff Warren's latest visit to Nairobi puts him in an ideal position to update the meeting on the status of the (nominally) working steam locos there, which he has inspected, and also show us his excellent images of Kenya Railway metre gauge operations in the last few years. Nick Lera has some video footage (taken by others) of the 2005 trips when steam ran for the last time to Kisumu on the original Uganda Railway route. He also has some EAR&H official films of the 1960's.
The British Overseas Railways Historical Trust (BORHT) was incorporated in 1984 for the purpose of building a museum and railway on Manchester Ship Canal land to tell the story of our railway export industry. Since that scheme was lost through the hostile take-over of the Canal, BORHT has built up a library and archive which has become a respected historical research resource. A current BORHT project is the rescue of the “Cold War Railcar”, the C-in-C BAOR’s command train. For information about BORHT, readers are recommended to our website, www.borht.org.uk.
Note for editors – Editors requiring more information, please email, borht.org@gmail.com
March 2017
MISSING FORDSON RADIATOR
A 1920’s Cork-built Fordson tractor radiator went missing from a garden in Peterborough in late February. Anybody with any information should contact BORHT, to which it belongs, on borht.org@gmail.com or telephone 020-8464-3850.
The radiator is part of a 60 cm gauge railway locomotive which ran on a seaside railway near Antwerp between the Wars.
BORHT also owns a sister locomotive which was rebuilt in the 1950’s with a Perkins-engined Fordson Major tractor as its power unit, of which restoration will start shortly.
The British Overseas Railways Historical Trust (BORHT) was incorporated in 1984 for the purpose of building a museum and railway on Manchester Ship Canal land to tell the story of our railway export industry. Since that scheme was lost through the hostile take-over of the Canal, BORHT has built up a library and archive which has become a respected historical research resource. A current BORHT project is the rescue of the “Cold War Railcar”, the C-in-C BAOR’s command train. For information about BORHT, readers are recommended to our website, www.borht.org.uk.
Editors requiring more information, please email, borht.org@gmail.com
August 2011.
David Shepherd is the New BORHT President
David Shepherd CBE, FRSA, FRGS, the well known artist and owner of “Black Prince”, has accepted the invitation of the Trustees of the British Overseas Railways Historical Trust to become the Trust’s President in succession to the late Andrew Henderson.
David Shepherd is famous as a wildlife artist and conservationist, through the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation. He is well known in Railway circles as the leading light in the attempt to convert the Longmoor Military Railway into a preserved railway operation and, on the failure of that scheme, to move that establishment to the East Somerset Railway. He also owns the locomotive Black Prince and has saved a 7th Class 4-8-0 locomotive and carriage from Rhodesia Railways which now reside at Locomotion, and a South African 15F class 4-8-2 which is now preserved in South Africa. He has recently celebrated his 80th birthday and has been a supporter of the Trust and one of its Vice-Presidents since its incorporation in 1984.
David Shepherd succeeds Andrew Henderson, who was the son and successor of Sir Brodie Henderson in the once world renowned firm of consulting engineers, Livesey and Henderson, who designed railways for many foreign countries. Andrew Henderson was a member of the Institutions of Mechanical and Civil Engineers and spent much of his post-war career introducing diesel power to railways worldwide.
The British Overseas Railways Historical Trust (BORHT) was incorporated in 1984 for the purpose of building a museum and railway on Manchester Ship Canal land to tell the story of our railway export industry. Since that scheme was lost through the hostile take-over of the Canal, BORHT has built up a library and archive which has become a respected historical research resource. For information about BORHT, readers are recommended to our new website, www.borht.org.uk.
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