Month: September 2014

Motorfest 2014 – Miss Stuart and Friends

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Thanks to everyone that came out to today’s Motorfest event, “Miss Stuart and Friends”, hosted at the museum.

It was a successful event, with over 40 people attending to inspect our collection and to see the vehicles in action, most of which were still out from yesterday’s Bay to Birdwood Run and were ready for some action. To top off a great day, the weather was perfect, rides were available in some of the vehicles; and the barbecue was as popular as ever.

We look forward to running this event again next year!

Miss Stuart Goes to Birdwood

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UPDATE: Due to transmission issues in the Birdwood area, the proposed news cross has been cancelled.

Today Miss Stuart, our M3A1 Stuart Tank, made the trip to the National Motor Museum in Birdwood, in order to be featured in a news cross tomorrow and to put on a display at Sunday’s Bay to Birdwood Run event. It should be a great day out and we have a considerable number of vehicles attending.

Many thanks to everyone that assisted with the move.

Getting Ready for the 2014 Bay to Birdwood Run

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Yesterday was a hive of activity at the museum with a number of vehicles being readied for the 2014 Bay to Birdwood Run.

The work varied from the minor to the major but on the whole it was a very successful, if long, day, with several members locking up the museum and leaving at 23:00!

Some of the highlights were:

  • Fitting a newly re-cored radiator and rebuilt carburettor to Dave’s 1942 GPW and giving it a tune-up
  • Changing the oil and starting up the Bedford QL fuel tanker
  • Topping up the fluid flywheel in Terry’s 1953 Alvis Saracen
  • Working on the starter motor of Ryan’s M16 MGMC
  • Fitting a newly rebuilt transfer case to the 9 Mile Snipers‘ Number 8 Gun Tractor
  • Final inspections and checks on Russell’s Austin Staff Car

While everyone did a stellar job yesterday, I would like to give special thanks to Dave and Geoff for their help with the Saracen’s flywheel (a terribly difficult job in a confined space) and to Peter for doing a wonderful job of rebuilding the Number 8’s transfer case and to Hugh for assisting with fitting it.

We’re looking forward to seeing everyone at this year’s Bay to Birdwood Run!

Events Calendar Bug Fix

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An ongoing problem with the events calendar was that the date and time information was not being shown when viewing an event (listings in calendar view were fine).

The root cause of the problem was determined to be a conflict between how the calendar works and the site’s CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), which has now been fixed.

Let us know if you notice anything else strange happening on the site.

Penfield Park Railway Open Day – August 2014

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On Sunday, Russell, our Secretary and Terry, our Webmaster, visited the Penfield Park Railway, during their monthly open day in order to promote our museum, and our upcoming open day on the 14th of September. To make the visit more interesting and to appeal to the public a little more, we took along Russell’s 1938 Austin Ten Staff Car and Terry’s 1953 Avis Saracens Mk 5 APC. It was a great visit with lots of interest generated in the vehicles and the museum; particularly the monthly open days.

We really enjoyed the visit and were really impressed by the facilities at the Penfield Park Railway and would like to thank the members of the Penfield Model Engineers Society for inviting us and making us feel very welcome. Russell even managed to find a source for an engineer’s hat! Unfortunately, due to a conflict with the Bay to Birdwood, we probably won’t be able to attend the Railway’s next open day, but we are keen to be back again in October.

The Penfield Park Railway has over 2 Km of track on their property, which incorporates tunnels, bridges and other features and unlimited train rides are included in the cost of entry. They also have a radio controlled sprint car track, canteen and BBQ facilities, and are very well suited to kids birthday parties. They are open on the last Sunday of every month (except December), and have several twilight open days each year; more details can be found on their website.