WYTHALL WORKS
As recorded in the last issue of ‘Omnibus’, a new mess room portacabin has been acquired and then fitted out in record time.
One of the, physically, hardest bits was transferring the entrance steps.
These are two of the substantial sets of steps previously used to access the railway carriages.
Moving them required virtually everyone on site at the time and then Pete Murphy masterminded their reduction in size to fit
the new location.
Taking a tour round the site, a number of other jobs have been done. In the car park area many of the hedging trees have been
reduced in height. Our neighbours have been responsible for dealing with the rhododendrons alongside
the road but Adrian Thomas and his wife, from the Elmdon Model Engineers Society,
have done an excellent job in shortening the Leylandii alongside the caravan club site.
The timing of the removal of the tram was fortuitous in this respect, it going just as they got to that bit of hedge.
A tree by the miniature railway that was leaning towards the track has also been removed. Finally, in the car park area,
advantage was taken of the dry weather towards the end of March to repaint the parking space lines.
The dismantling of the railway carriages temporarily deprived the admission hut of electrical power.
This has now been rectified with the rerouting of the supply from the carriages.
The other ‘structure’ near the admission hut is local electricity supply sub-station.
After years of the gates on the surrounding fence having fallen off it came as a surprise when they suddenly arrived
and fitted new ones. Just outside this is currently the temporary home for a bus shelter and bus stop signs recently
uprooted by Centro from Pershore Road and, being of old design, donated to the Museum.
When we come to move them they are more items that will require a large team!
One of the incidental jobs of removing the railway carriages was that the phone line in to the site had to be moved.
Another job masterminded by Pete with assistance from Kevin Hill and myself. It now runs from the pole in the middle of the
picnic site – the pole in which a woodpecker has drilled its nest hole! – to the Scania Hall and then works its way round the site.
The fact there is enough clearance for double deckers under the wire where it crosses the road to the Electric
Vehicle Hall is more luck than judgement! The E.V.Hall was treated to a new roof covering in January;
the old one was beginning to split at the seams and prevention was felt to be better than cure.
I don’t suppose readers will want to know about the blocked urinals and other problems with the plumbing in the Gents but someone has to fix them.
The outside door also fell off which meant a long put off plan to replace it (not of course with a new one) was put in to practice.
After the acquisition of new (to us) shop fittings and carpet recorded in previous ‘Omnibuses’ (or should that be ‘Omnibii’?)
a lot of work has been done in sorting out the shop area, particularly by John Rollings. Prior to putting these acquisitions in
place the walls and ceiling were given a lick of paint by Bob Williamson and Maurice Collignon amongst others.
The space recently cleared on the Britannic side of the Scania Hall has now been filled by moving the Fleetline chassis and the Tug in there.
Both needed to be moved to allow construction of the new ramp to the Scania Hall.
Otherwise work in this area has largely been confined to jobs on vehicles.
The Blueline stores building has taken on an additional function as paintshop, another activity displaced from one of the
railway carriages.
Phil Ireland
I find that “previous editions of ‘Omnibus’” uses a bit more space but avoids the philological conundrum
of whether one can have a plural of a word that is already in a plural form, albeit used as a singular.
This is what happens when one names a public conveyance after the advertising slogan of a French grocer with a Latin sense of humour.
I refer, of course, to Monsieur Omnes of Nantes, who named his shop “Omnes Omnibus” (Omnes for all).
Stanislaus Baudry then adopted the name “Omnibus” for his carriage service that terminated adjacent to the aforementioned shop,
after which George Shillibeer, who had been trading in Paris at the time, brought the name over to London in 1829.
Paul Gray proposed the name for this journal in November 1974. Editor
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