September work on the ALRC

As we progress into Autumn and the days start to get shorter, there are still plenty of jobs to do on the railway. Hotspur's blower was not working last week when we had a running session, so our engineering boys (Ray, Barry & Geoff), are fabricating some replacement pipework as the existing run was found to be blocked. The pruning of our bushes and trees continues and the grass is still growing ! Geoff is spending time working on his loco, Titan, which we hope will be running soon, and we are making some fencing panels to tidy up the area around the signal box where we plan to install a paving slab footpath so that we don't keep walking across the ballast here, and, as it was a bit wet this morning, we were tidying up our workshop storage cupboard so all our manuals and catalogues can be stored tidily.....

End of the line (s) !

The latest little project undertaken one afternoon when Dave & Ray were looking for another job to do, (?) was to fabricate a couple of rather smart but very effective buffer stops from bits of old rail and timber. Well done Chaps, very resourceful !!!!!

Track rearrangements

Photo: BM

This week saw the completion of the improvements to our loco shed access trackwork. The work entailed the installation of two new points and alteration of the trackwork at the shed end of the platform, enabling much quicker loco changes to be made. We can now access shed roads 2 & 3 straight from the platfom, and shed track 1 from the middle road in the (Ashmanhaugh) station. This will help to keep loco changover delays to a minimum on Open Days.

We tested this new arrangement during our running day today when several of our members got more experience in driving , guarding and signalling.

7th September Open Day cancelled

The wet weather once again forced us to cancel Sunday's Open Day, unfortunately, but the ground was just too waterlogged to cope with the car traffic on our parking area.

Sorry if you made a fruitless journey, let's hope we can run the last Open Day this year, scheduled for 5th October!