Steam will ride again!

A local newspaper report of an event at the Long Shop Museum in Leiston, Suffolk - once the foundry of The Richard Garrett engineering works - also mentioned that the heritage group Leiston Works Railway has been granted planning permission to lay new track on a long abandoned railway, prompting me to visit the museum yesterday to find out more.

The intention is to run rail vehicles drawn by horses, or the steam shunting locomotive, Sirapite, which replaced them here in 1929 and fell into neglect when the works closed in 1962, but now fully restored with the help of Lottery funding, is in steam again and raring to go!

Sirapite was not in steam yesterday but I was able to grab a shot of her in the small shed she now shares with an historic steam roller of the kind once seen levelling freshly laid tarmac on public roads - not ideally placed for photography - but watch this space because as an American WW2 general once famously said, "I shall return!"