For the next few days. there will be some images from last weekend's Railway Gala at the Amberley Working Museum, near Arundel, West Sussex. Don't worry if you don't like railways as there will be one or two other images from the Museum. In 1982 the collection of industrial and narrow gauge items formerly kept at the Brockham Museum's site near Dorking, Surrey was brought to Amberley when the Brockham Trust lost their site due, mainly, to access problems. With it came many interesting locomotives, rolling stock and sundry related items and the much enlarged collection has become one of the most significant in the UK. It also resulted in the railway collection at Amberley taking a completely new direction in that a passenger carrying line was proposed and built. This remains the most public face of the collection. The original line is now well established and has recently been extended. "Polar Bear" which was built in 1906 for the 2ft gauge Groudle Glen Railway on the Isle of Man, the second of two similar locomotives constructed by Bagnalls of Stafford for the line. When the original GGR closed in the 1960s, Polar Bear was acquired by the Brockham Museum Association and came to Amberley when the two collections were amalgamated in 1982. Polar Bear operated at Amberley from 1984 until 1987 when the boiler (which later we found out dated from 1927) was condemned. A new boiler was constructed in 1992 and the loco returned to service in 1993 in its original yellow livery. For her size, she makes light work of the gradients at Amberley. More about the Museum here.

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