Landships II

Dear All,

I am a volunteer member of a narrow gauge railway museum charity called the Moseley Railway Trust (http://www.mrt.org.uk), who operate the Apedale Valley Light Railway in North Staffordshire, UK

As you are aware, 2014 will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War. This conflict was the catalyst for many changes, the result of which lead to the modern world we now live in.

One of the areas where it had a huge impact was transport, particularly military logistics in all theatres; there was a massive move away from the use of horses, with lorries & railways used on a previously unimaginable scale. Tactical narrow gauge railways, with their ability to rapidly adapt to the changes in the battlefield, were eventually used by all combatants somewhat amazingly all sides standardized upon 60cm gauge field railways.

These railways, which served most front lines of the conflict, became the catalyst for many post-war industrial railways - providing high quality "war surplus" equipment at bargain prices, which served a multitude of industries around the world long after the war ended.

You can also see some more details about these railways on my own personal website here: http://www.wdlr.org.uk

Our museum currently encompasses an extremely comprehensive collection of locomotives (around 60) and rolling stock including a significant quantity of materials built for use in France during WW1. In addition to our passenger railway, we also have a large (currently undeveloped) field area on which we are intending to start construction of a traditional field railway and various external cameo museum display areas.

Due to the timing, our external WW1 museum area (hopefully to include a typical locomotive shed) is likely to be one of the first areas to be developed shortly.

We are now confirming plans for the major WW1 "Tracks to the Trenches" event centred around our site over the weekend of September 13/14 (extending to possibly a long weekend) 2014. We are now starting to book some key attractions - there should be a press release shortly & the event now has its own website - please see: http://www.ww1-event.org
We are also adding some WW1 related model displays & currently in discussions with several owners.

We will appreciate any feedback to this!

I would be extremely interested to explore ways that we might be able to work together with other groups, or receive expressions of interest in attending from Groups/traders/etc please.

Some projects that we are looking at are:
Construction of an outdoors WW1 cameo museum display area probably including WW1 replica engine shed & other related items. (subject to planning applications!)
Extensive field railway
Event field
Possibly a small section of trench
Various Living history groups
Visiting locomotives/stock hopefully to represent British, USA, French & German railways.
Our site has an active drift mine that provides tours - hopefully this will also be included to show the tunnelling war.

Im sure that lots of other items and opportunities will start to present themselves too.

We are keen to have discussions with various Living history Groups (& others) who may be interested in working with us during this construction & gala creation.

I look forward to hearing from you all soon.

Thanks in advance,

Gareth Roberts
Moseley Railway Trust Event Organiser