Brilliant October Open Day !

The smart new bunting

So our last Open day for this year was very sucessful, lots of happy visitors, lots of happy ALR members and helpers, and lots of happy locos !!! Well done to everybody who helped in some way or other, all went to plan, we had no mishaps at all, marvellous, it was a lovely afternoon. 

Getting ready

So thank you to everyone who has been to see us this year, we have enjoyed having you with us and we hope to see you next year. Special thanks must also go to Chris, Paul, David and Tony for coming along to help with their lovely engines and a big thank you also, to David's good lady, who very kindly supplied the very smart 'ALR' bunting you will have seen about the site. We also feel that we should mention the excellent help that all of our good ladies give us both on Open Days and throughout the year, we couldn't have the great railway that we have without their contribution, so a big 'Thank You Ladies', we do appreciate your efforts!!

Busy Station

There was a good variety of locos and stock working too, with 'Chieftain,' 'The Shay', 'Hotspur' (well driven on your first Open Day Pierre!), 'Isabel', 'Prospero', 'Remus' and 'Holkham' all working well.

Holkham arrives at the platform

Remus coming through the station

Things have gone a little quiet now after all that excitement, but we have a Fun Day planned for the 20th so we will have another 'play' before starting to take stuff in and getting on with maintenance, and the gardening of course. over the Winter period.

So, not a lot to report this time but we will keep you updated with our progress over the coming months, bye for now

The A L R Gang

Pierre with Hotspur on the Back Straight ....again! 

Ray with Chieftain leaving the station

Keith with Isabel passing the signal box

TTFN

October update

Hello

Well, it's our final Open Day of the year on Sunday 7th October, so we are hoping for a good, sunny day we can enjoy showing off our railway to our visitors. We have had a good year on the operating front with everything running , mostly, as planned, but as always, there are always one or two 'whoospies' that are sent to test us! We are still a bit mystified as to why 'Hotspur' suddenly doesn't want to play, after a couple of hours running, and we will see how the loco performs on Sunday! We will have our visiting Friends again to help out with a couple of their locos, and most of our locos will be available, so there should be plenty of variety. The weather forecast looks good, so fingers crossed?

Work has started on creating the trackbed for our new sidings down at the loco shed so we can get the new three way point installed after our last 2018 Open Day. Then we can carry on with the grading of the trackbed going into the extended lean to, as time and resources (and weather!) permit.

The new three way point laid in its proposed position.

Keith, Pierre and John hard at work digging out the new track bed

The S and T boys are working through the signalling and track circuiting to keep all working and will be carrying out some upgrading and servicing of circuits and wiring over the winter. Some of the installations have been in place for 13, 14 years now, so they have performed well. We will have to start thinking about Winter maintenance too now and come up with lists of things to do (just like being at home !!!)

The steam loco driving sessions are coming along nicely, and on a recent 'Fun Day', several of us had a drive on 'Atlas' and were pleased with its willingness to 'go', lovely little loco.

Graham wrestles with the controls on 'Atlas', while Pierre gets some more steam driving practise
Photos: Brian M

Gardening continues with grass being cut still and bushes and trees trimmed as necessary. more tree felling due over the coming months to trim out further areas.

Think that' s about all for now, maybe we'll see you on Sunday ?

TTFN