Our principal horn, Simon Marshall, started lessons on the instrument at the age of ten, after about eight years of ceaseless pestering! He moved to Leicestershire in 1991 following an engineering appointment at Brush Traction, and joined the horn section of the Charnwood Orchestra as soon as a vacancy arose some 3 years later.

Simon is married to Heather, who plays viola in the orchestra, and they live in East Leake.
He now works as Contracts Engineer in the European Office of the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway Corporation. MTR, as it is known, performs a similar role in Hong Kong to London Underground in the UK, except that, with a punctuality record of over 99%, if an MTR train is as much as five minutes late it can make front page news! Simon's job involves travelling all over Europe and North America visiting MTR's suppliers to witness formal testing, carry out inspections, progress chasing and generally acting as 'eyes and ears' for his colleagues back in Hong Kong.
The products can vary from the carriages and locomotives to track, signals, air conditioning, escalators, in fact everything to run a railway. It is with a certain amount of glee that he is able to point out to Americans that the USA is seen in Hong Kong as coming under Europe, a leg pull generally made even more satisfying when it is met with a complete humour failure!

Hard pressed London commuters may be pleased to learn that MTR is working in a consortium to bid for the Kent railway franchise. They are also building a cable car system to connect the new Hong Kong Airport with a Buddhist temple on the top of an adjacent mountain.

So what is this other picture of him driving a train on the Severn Valley Railway? Is it not a mistake to mix your hobby and your job? To find the secret of this particular success you will just have to ask him!