Good evening,

Tonight we have a quick post featuring the July update from the 35011 General Steam Navigation project.

July 2016 Update

T he General Steam Navigation Locomotive Restoration Society is proud to announce that they are now the owners of the Merchant Navy class locomotive General Steam Navigation. The Society that was set up in January with the aim of restoring the locomotive to the condition she was in just before she was rebuilt by British Rail in 1959 have taken a big step forward with the acquisition of the locomotive.

When the former owner saved General Steam Navigation by purchasing her from Barry Scrap yard in 1988 she became the 199th locomotive to leave the now legendary scrap yard and he went on to own the Merchant Navy for 28 years which was longer than British Railways and Southern Railway combined.  Simon Shutt the societies Membership Secretary explained that “The society is enormously grateful for everything the previous owner did for 35011 and us now owning the locomotive is a clear indication of the confidence that he and our members have in our project to restore GSN to how she was before she was rebuilt.”  The Society has placed the locomotive in a company which members will soon be able to buy shares in.

This month also saw our second working weekend on the locomotive. The weekend was very hot but we still made progress on the loco raking and blowing out the sludge from the water spaces on the firebox and made a start on needle gunning the rust and scale off the firebox throat plate but we wilted in the heat so moved on to removing the AWS conduit and wiring from the running boards as that was in the shade. We also made a start cleaning out the Smokebox and put a tarpaulin over it to give it a chance to dry out. If you would to buy any of the modified parts like the smoke deflectors or any of the other parts that we not be reusing please let us know.

This month we also received our second payment from EasyFundraising and as a result of our great members we are able to raise £43 in the second quarter of the year. Our social secretary raised the most money by booking his holiday online which raised £20 for us. Easyfundraising is a great way to raise money for railway projects like us and we have recently joined the site. All you need to do is click on the link below and sign up. What this does is provides the project with cash donations every time you shop online. So next time you are buying train tickets or your weekly shop or pretty much anything else you can buy online go to the link below find the retailer you wish to use be it Amazon, The Trainline or many others and purchase your goods as you would do normally. It doesn’t cost you anymore but we benefit from it. This is great and free way of supporting 35011. Above you can find a great video which explains how it all works and you join our  EasyFundraising cause by clicking here.  You can even earn free donations for us by signing up to free trials and services that don’t cost a penny! You can find these on our free donations page. An example is if you sign up for Asda mobile sim card (no contract connected) they will donate 50p to GSN. Signing up with our cause will be gratefully appreciated by us no matter how small you think your donations might be.