During 1995 the Nene Valley Railway's Museum Curator, Brian White, became aware that the National Railway Museum (NRM) was considering a review of its collection and that TPO M30272M was to be included in this review. Brian White had worked for most of his life on the TPOs and had a desire to see one preserved on the railway that was capable of exchanging mail from the apparatus. The NVR already had a Southern TPO, 4920, on loan from the NRM. This being in use as the railway's museum and in any case it was not equipped to perform an exchange.

Brian White then enrolled Brian Hallett to help co-ordinate the project. The NVR Board minutes for 24th August 1995 show that Brian White asked the Board to consider acquiring the TPO to which the Board asked for a full report giving the condition of the vehicle, likely costs involved and the uses the vehicle could be put to.

Brian Hallett and Brian White then visited Tyseley to look at the coach. This resulted in a 4 page paper being prepared and presented to the Board at an additional meeting on 14th October 1995. The Board approved the plan and gave permission to submit the case to the NRM provided that all the money required for the project (at this stage estimated to be £11,000) was raised by the railway's museum group and had no burden on the railway.

A case was presented to the NRM by the end of October and a few months of waiting followed. However, on the 19th February 1996 the railway received a letter from the NRM (shown left) stating that we had been successful with our case.

Immediately a fund raising programme was started (a tombola). However, a member of the NVR, who asked to remain anonymous, donated some £500 towards the project. This along with other donations gave the project the start that it needed, the coach could now be moved to Wansford without the need to ask the NVR for any kind of monetary loan.

The coach arrived during the middle of 1996 and was put into storage pending a location being found to undertake the restoration work. Two teams were also created, one to undertake the fund raising and the other to undertake the restoration work.

The fund raising team soon put into practice schemes that have raised money at a pace that has allowed us to continue the work of the group without being held up for lack of funds. The schemes have involved the sale of model vans, second hand books, the 'Friends' scheme and the production of a couple of TPO related books. Details of all these schemes can be found on our fund raising page.

At the NVR Board meeting of 24th July 1997 correspondence was received offering to donate £2,000 towards the purchase of a parcels vehicle. The Board then asked the TPO group if it would like to expand its aims to include a second TPO or parcel vehicle to work with M30272M. The aims were amended at the NVR Board meeting of 21st August 1997 so that a support vehicle for M30272M would be acquired using the donation.

The first line of thought was to acquire a BR Mark 1 design of TPO coach, as such EWS was approached to see if they had any surplus vehicles. At the same time we also looked at an LMS Full Brake at Tyseley, 31244, which was found to have a very poor body, but excellent chassis.

On the 4th March 1998 the letter (shown left) arrived at Wansford. EWS had a vehicle, 80301, which was lying at Bristol and was available for sale provided it was collected immediately. However, due to the timescales involved, just seven days, in which to inspect the vehicle we were not able to put a bid forward. Fortunately the vehicle has been saved for preservation by Railway Vehicle Preservations at the Great Central Railway.

Our attentions then turned to finding a suitable LMS BG (Full Brake). Letters were written to all railways that had such vehicles to see if they would part company with them. Of some eleven letters written only four replied (a fifth one was received in June 1999 - some 15 months after the letter was written), with one having a vehicle that would be available in about three years time. This vehicle was inspected and found to be suitable. Since there was to be approximately three years before we could get hold of it we continued to look for a suitable vehicle.

It was by now becoming apparent that the TPO group had a project that was starting to fire people's imagination. We had TPO M30272M and approval to obtain a second vehicle, it seemed appropriate that we should look at how we could expand the aims of the group to include a collection of LMS / TPO vehicles and house them in a self contained building for restoration and display. The building would also be able to provide museum display space for other related TPO topics. The TPO group then produced and presented an eleven page proposal to the NVR Board meeting of 23rd April 1998 to expand the aims of the group to include other TPO and LMS vehicles along with a museum facility at Ferry Meadows. This was approved unanimously.

At the NVR Board meeting of 26th November 1998 the Board assisted the project by allocating half of the general donations for 1998 to the TPO project.

On the 11th February 1999 a catalogue of carriages available for sale arrived at the NVR, amongst the list of vehicles (mainly BR Mark 1s) there was one LMS BG listed. This being 30976 at the Llangollen Railway. Contact was made and a visit to look at the coach was arranged for the 22nd February. Brian Hallett and Karl Mayes travelled up from Peterborough and inspected the vehicle and took a set of pictures. As a result of this trip an offer was made for the vehicle, which was accepted, the vehicle officially becoming the property of the Nene Valley Railway on 21st April 1999. The vehicle did not move to the NVR until 12th September 2000. The TPO group would like to have 30976 overhauled under contract, but have been unable to find anyone who will quote for the work, one company has given a quote that is in excess of our budgeted figure.