The Mayor of Rotherham Councillor Allan Jackson, accompanied by the Mayoress Yvonne Jackson, visited the Victoria Park site on the 30th April 2008, to officially open the Societies ground level track and to name the new petrol hydraulic locomotive. The name for the locomotive had been selected from a list of names submitted by Ryecroft Infants School. The winning name of "GREEN DRAGON" submitted by class 4 at the school, was announced at the unveiling of the loco nameplates by the Mayor. There had been a bit of a problem in selecting the winning name, as class 5 at the school had submitted "The Green Dragon" as one of there nominations. Subsequently it was decided that the fairest solution was to have joint winners but with "Green Dragon" chosen for the name plates.

The event started at 1pm with the pupils from Ryecroft Infants School taking part in a number of activities in conjunction with the Park Rangers and Jenny from Groundworks Dearne Valley. Our involvement was to give rides to the pupils with Pete Farrar driving his Holmside and Mike Thomas driving his LNER V4.

The Mayor and Mayoress arrived at the site at 1:30pm and were met and escorted around the site by our Chairman Dennis Meares and Treasurer Ken Staniforth. They were shown the Gauge One layout before moving on to look at the two workshops.

Promptly at 2:30pm approximately 150 pupils from the school congregated around the station area ready for the naming ceremony. After the naming, presentation of a plaque was made to two pupils from the school by the Mayor, followed by the presentation of a framed photograph of "Green Dragon" to two more pupils. A short speech, thanking the Society for inviting the school, was made by a pupil  from the school and by the Headmistress Mrs Etchell. Dennis then presented the Mayor with a framed photograph of "Green Dragon" with the four new coaches and finally two pupils from the school presented a basket of flowers to the Mayoress.

The Mayor and Mayoress were invited to take a ride on the train together with pupils from the two winnings classes. Dave Batchford was in charge of the train with its VIP's.

Finally the party inspected the display of both train and a variety of other models, together with a look at the photographic display depicting the history of the site. Unfortunately at this point the rains came to put a damper on proceedings, with the school having to hurriedly retire back to school. At least we were able to get through the important part of the programme before the rain came.

At 3:15pm after a well earned cup of tea, the Mayor and Mayoress left for the Town Hall. All we had to do then was clear everything away in the pouring rain.

The event was attended using our portable track and "Victoria Rose". A reasonably successful day was had with 220 passengers being carried.

Although not spectacular in passengers carried we did manage to give rides to 236 passengers a shortfall of just 64 on target. Once again the weather intervened with the onset of rain early afternoon. There would have been a chance to meet the target if the weather had been kinder. Some problems occured with the track settling on the grass and considerable packing was needed.

An excellent afternoon was had with the portable track and "Victoria Rose" at the Beighton Gala event on the 12th July 2008. Just over 400 passengers were carried with takings exceeding the guarantee that had been made by the Gala committee.
As a contrast the previous Saturday's event at Hemingfield was cancelled at the last minute due to rain. This event carried guaranteed minimum takings, a compromise was arrived at to compensate us without causing too large a burden on the event organisers.

A moderately successful day was had at the "Festival of Transport Event" held at Graves Park on the 29th June 2008. After a fairly brisk beginning the heavens opened at just after 2pm, lasting about 30 minutes. The sun came out then, but the damage had already been done as many potential passengers headed for home. However we still managed to carry 501 passengers, although this was still 200 down on the last time we visited the event in 2006, last years event being cancelled due to the weather. Apart from when the ashpan and grate got clogged up "Victoria Rose" ran well, the problem being rectified during the downpour, when we had no passengers.

A short video of "Victoria Rose" in action at Graves Park can be found on the Video Page.

A very successful day was had at Weston Park in Sheffield on the 1st June 2008. The event, organised by Sheffield Municipal Borough Council and involved a visit by the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, had a Victorian theme with many visitors appropriately dressed in Victorian costumes.
We had set up the portable track on the Saturday in a prime position near to the main entrance. It was nice to have a good flat site on a tarmac road without having to do a lot of packing. Sunday morning set off badly with some quite heavy rain but fortunately had stopped by the time the public started to arrive. It was then all go until 5:30pm, when it was decided to pack up, with 732 passengers having being carried during the day. This turned out to be a record for a single day with a very welcome boost to club funds.
The Wren performed admirably throughout the day,

A short video of the Wren in action at Weston Park can be found on the Video Page

Public running on Wednesdays and Sundays throughout 2008 has now ceased for the winter and will recommence at Easter 2009. We achieved an improvement of 109% in passengers carried in 2008, compared with the same period in 2007. In particular Wednesdays showed up better than Sundays as far as volume was concerned with an improvement of 157% in passengers carried compared with Wednesdays in 2007. An average of 116 passengers were carried on Wednesdays this year, with a peak of 178.
The success of this year can be put down to the Mayor's visit to name "Green Dragon" plus the run of adverts placed in the local press at the start of the running season.

The "Noddy" weekend, although a success from a running point of view, was a disappointment from a takings point of view. Compared with the average over the previous 4 years, takings were down by 22% and compared with 2005 and 2006 were down by 41%. Even compared with last years disaster we were down by 10%. The weather couldn't be blamed, although quite windy it remained dry on both days. However one explanation for the Saturday may have been the football match on TV between  Doncaster and Leeds, although there was very little difference between takings on each of the two days. Once again the new gazebo took a battering and had to be abandoned on the Sunday. Some repair work will now be required.

The event held weekend 19th/20th July put the new system, of Elsecar Steam Railway buying us in, into operation. There were no major problems the only minor problems were that we found that adults tickets did not include additional rides so we had to use our discretion and allow them to ride if accompanied by a child. Also several potential customers had to be refused rides as they did not have a ticket. We did a head count on the Saturday when 363 passengers were carried. As far as we could see we did not lose out on the event.

Subsequently we were not invited to attend the Thomas event scheduled for 27th and 28th of September. We suspected that this might be the case after learning that the Elsecar Steam Railway had financial problems at the last event. We are however disappointed that we were not consulted prior to the decision not to invite us.

We were invited to attend a Halloween event on the 31st October followed by a Mardy Monster special event on the 1st/2nd November. These were a complete disaster, not helped by the poor weather. We carried 103 passengers on the 31st October, 50 on the 1st November and the magnificent number of 9 on the 2nd November.

We will have to see what happens in 2009 but the outlook doesn't look good.

Drawings for new driving cars for both the petrol hydraulic loco and the Wren have been drawn up by Mike Thomas. Thanks Mike for a very good job and also for the input into the manufacturing of a number of parts. The laser cut plates for the first riding car ( petrol hydraulic loco ) have been delivered and assembly of the body and chassis completed, thanks to our chief welder Tony Agar. Undercoat has been applied to both the body and chassis, with application of the top coat progressing, thanks this time to Geoff Symms.
Wheels and axles for both driving cars have been generously donated by an engineering company based in Dinnington. Assembly of the wheels, axles and axle boxes have been completed, we are indebted once again to Tony Agar for the manufacture of the superb axle boxes.
Although specific names have been mentioned above, we mustn't forget that other members have also been involved and thanks to them.