An unexpected turn of events occurred on Friday 19th November.

I was informed that it was perhaps the case that First Engineering didn't actually own the Permaquip 68706 having apparently been sold to Elec Track Installations during the FE plant auction of January 1999. This of course was slightly worrying considering we had sent payment to FE for this machine shortly before! The transport arrangements were also in place and the Colne Valley Railway were expecting it to arrive at the beginning of December.

After a phone call from FE to ETI we received an email confirming this was indeed the case - ETI were the owners of this machine but they had never collected it from Rutherglen for the last 5 years! This was a surprise to all involved and it left us wondering what would happen next.

However this morning I received a call from ETI's Business Development Director who very kindly offered to donate the machine to us for free! They are more biased towards road railer operations these days and don't have any use for it so he was glad to see it go to a good home. This of course was better news than we could have ever expected as it now means we can use this money elsewhere and all the arrangements already in place can still go ahead.

We would again like to extend our warmest thanks to the guys at ETI for this very generous offer and look forward to welcoming you to the Colne Valley Railway to have a look at our machines in the future.

Delivery of the Permaquip to the CVR is expected to happen early on Saturday December 11th 2004.

No more has yet been finalised with regard to 68030 although it is now understood that Network Rail are keen to move it out of the shed at Stranraer as it apparently attracts vandals! This may help with our case for getting our track possession and of course after hearing this we are keen to get it moved before they do any more damage! Whether this happens before Christmas still has to be resolved.