Manchester Transport Museum 28th February 2010

Sue and I went up to the Manchester Branch Winter Rally at the end of February. This Rally is held in the Museum of Transport in Greater Manchester. We’ve wanted to go to their rally for a couple of years but either moving house or being one ‘step behind’ because of personal reasons has got in the way….. . Because the Manchester Rally was so much nearer to Barnsley than us and their monthly meeting was on the Thursday night we  decided to skive off  work on the Friday so that we could spend the weekend with Chris and Keith Haigh at Tankersley. Keith has recently retired (or so he thought, until Chris got him to refurbish their back bedroom into a ‘semi on suit’).

On Friday we went to Standedge Tunnel to make a site visit in preparation for our Northern Regional Rally. It snowed nearly all the way there and was bitterly cold so we were a little apprehensive about the journey over the Pennines on Sunday but we needn’t have worried as although the Sunday morning was cold and grim there wasn’t any snow.

We met at the famous Barnsley branch meeting point ‘Birdwell’ – which turned out to be a very conveniently situated lay-by. The group once assembled set off for the ‘other side’.

The people at the Museum had moved out several buses to enable the Minors to be parked inside. We had been pre warned that the conditions, although we were going to be inside would be chilly, Sue had bought herself a set of thermal underwear the day before and was very glad she had, I was sporting my thermal long Johns for the first time since I was about 17! Let me tell you it was very cold! We had a tour around Manchester on one of the old 1960 red service buses; these ran every hour for most of the rally from 11am.  We sat on the lower deck and John who was our conductor chatted to us about his time driving buses and how Manchester had changed over the years, he pointed out lots of famous interesting places and filled us in on their back grounds, including the canal section where the scene in Coronation Street was shot where Gail Platt was driven in with her whole family by her evil husband who’s name escapes me…… (I am not a Corrie fan)…….

We had a really good day and I’m sure we will be going again as the Manchester ‘crew’ made us most welcome. It was good to start the years rallying with this one as we met up with folks from all over Area 1 who we haven’t seen since last summer.

We made it door to door home in 2 hours 20 minutes, not bad for a 1000cc engine. Hopefully next year some of you might like to join us and enjoy a really good day out.

Chris Akrill

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