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After the Ashton's the term used by a certain Director and his band of merry Sandtoft Transport Centre Miniature Railway group followers who were said to be creating "a new and exciting era for a new and better railway", a bit of a bluff and despair as it turned out be realising what had been lost when the Sandtoft Miniature Railway group pulled out. This new group was formed calling themselves the "Sandtoft Transport Centre Miniature Railway" group and was headed by the person who threatened "to close the SMR railway down" after on the 1st May 2000 due to a disagreement over the language needed to make junior members of the SMR understand health and safety issues.
Lack of funding from the museum led the new STCMR having to use totally inadequate materials for the track and not sufficient money to buy rolling stock. This new group I am told also became the victims of spiteful vindictiveness (such as their car tyres being let down) by the same person it seems that had caused our group to leave the museum. With hassle and obstructions like this, it was obvious to us that the STCMR was not going to ever succeed with their attempts to re-open the miniature railway. All the track that had been put down by the SMCMR group was disposed of by the museum and the railway track-bed became what is claimed to be a highly successful Nature Trail.
The railway shed built and paid for by our members, that was once the centre of the railway operations is now the Sunbeam Bicycle Museum and shop. Has anything been learnt by the instigator of such damaging bitterness? Seems not, the bitterness that has plagued the museum from about 1970 is still there eating away into the heart of the museum even today, long after we have gone as shown by a certain "For Sale" sign on a building. Something that is not going un-noticed at other similar museums. Mind you that does not stop me from being blamed for things going wrong even down to being wrongfully accused of damaging their telephone information line. Egg in the face for the accuser yet again, as according to the telephone engineer who found the fault in an under ground cable down the road towards the Reindeer Inn. In 2005 after a visit to the museum I was accused of damaging the toilets by a certain Director, cling film on the toilet seats! If the museum gets struck by lightning or as recently flooded by the rains of the 25th June 2007, will this be an act of God or yours truly.
Do the vehicle owners still suffer from mysterious acts of vandalism? Yes! In 2006 a friend and a member of ours who is the joint owner of an ex-First bus, started to notice scratches and dents appearing. Below you can see one of the many dents, with the red marks indicating the length of scratches that have appeared since the bus arrived at the museum.
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