Seeing as it is Saturday evening, it seemed the ideal timing to report on the Kent and East Sussex Railway’s Saturday Gang! They have started the year by publishing an update on the end of 2015.  The gang work on maintaining and overhauling the railway’s fleet of locomotives.  In the latest update, details of work on eight steam locomotives and Ransomes and Rapier 30-ton Steam Crane DS81 are provided.  This includes work starting on USA tank DS238 (pictured above) and their ex-SECR P class (pictured below.)  To read the latest update, please go to their blog  saturdaygang.blogspot.co.uk.

The gang provides video updates of their work, the latest (as this goes to press) can be viewed below:

The gangs’ current “flagship” project is the heavy overhaul of Hunslet Austerity 25 Northiam (pictured above.)  As you can se in the latest report, work on this locomotive has been mainly focussed on the boiler.  This Hunslet Austerity is a favourite of mine from my childhood and I’ve enjoyed reading and watching progress on its overhaul. The blue livery looks rather good and is reminiscent of that worn by locomotives of the Longmoor Military Railway. No 25 should be steaming, in hopefully the not too distant future.

Volunteering information can be found on the K&ESR website here or if you would like to contact the gang directly, their email address is saturdaygang@gmail.com