Revolution Trains would like to thank our friends at DB Cargo UK and Drax Power for inviting us to join a locomotive naming ceremony at York in honour of Martin House Children’s Hospice this Friday June 2nd.
66190 was the locomotive selected by DB for the honour and arrived into the station for the ceremony gleaming from a fresh repaint and ready for the unveiling, which was carried out by representatives of Martin House, Network Rail, and DB accompanied by families who’d used the services of the hospice.
DB Cargo UK’s head of sales Roger Neary told those watching that in four years of fundraising, primarily through a series of exclusive charter excursions, DB, Network Rail and the wider rail industry had raised an incredible £200,000 for Martin House.
He vowed this work would continue, adding that the naming would help to raise awareness of the charity as the locomotive carries its name around the network.
Revolution was invited because of our previous support of Martin House, having worked with Drax and Rails of Sheffield to raise funds for the charity through sales of our N gauge models of Drax’s striking IIA-D biomass hoppers.
Several twin-sets were repackaged for the day with commemorative Martin House/Drax branding for on-the-day presentations and to be auctioned to raise more for Martin House.
The ceremony was followed by a short railtour from York to Gascoigne Wood and on to Drax itself, where guests were given a brief tour of the power station which is Western Europe’s largest.
The train comprised Mk2b generator (Formerly BFK) M17105, Mk2f FOs M3325 and M3345 and MK2f RFB M1200, all in blue grey livery, top-and-tailed by 66190 and 60044.
Revolution’s friend and celebrity rail enthusiast Francis Bourgeois joined us on board and, while an 00 modeller himself, surprised us by saying the production samples of Revolution’s Caledonian Sleeper coaches and decorated samples of our Silverlink Class 313s (his favourite train!) might just convince him to begin an N gauge side project…
Finally, special mention must be made of the team at Toton that prepared 66190 for its big day out.
The locomotive had been immaculately repainted and was beautifully turned out with white wheel rims, a shiny new exhaust and incredible gloss finish.
Surely, we mused as the day came to an end, it was deserving of a limited edition N gauge model to Revolution standards that, like our Drax hoppers, could generate more funding for such a good cause…