'The History of Willesden Depot'
It is getting a bit colder now , and when we opened up this month we had a nice warm venue to
greet us. The 'putting out' team were quickly on the go and we soon had 4 or 5 rows of chairs and a
few tables.
Our chairman brought the meeting to order with some club business and introduced the speakers.
Tonight was another loco evening and we also had two guests, John Sharp who organises the
Meccano i/p to our exhibition and Paul Jeffrey. I had chatted with Paul while we were both doing
stewarding duties at the NLSME on a public opening afternoon during the summer and he said he
would like to come along.
Michael Watts led the evening and he first introduced Peter Fuller who grew up close to the Willesden loco depot and had lots of photos. Peter was giving us a taster as we shall have an evening of the history of the sheds later next year.
Michael and Mark between them went on to tell us of their experience working and repairing locos.
They told us of the faults and fixes of getting a broken loco working again and the improvements as
new locos were introduced and the various classes of the locos as the years went by.
We had a break part way through for coffee and tea and I was chatting with John Sharp who was very enthusiastic about the evening, so I elaborated on what we do and he said “When can I join”?
so, we have gained another member!
We returned to the talk and there were lots of questions which were all answered by the speakers
and we went a bit over time which is the sign of a good evening.
Thanks to all that made the evening work and we all left ‘quietly’ and went home.
Roy Verden
October 2025