Work in Progress: 20th February

posted by Nigel Thompson on Thu, 20/02/2014 - 22:25

Half-term trains operating today...

It's half-term week and passenger trains are operating on the L&BR. We're one of the few attractions actually open to visitors this week and many people are pleased to find us helping to keep them and their children amused.

1. The first train of the day arrived at Killington Lane with Hunslet diesel D6652 in charge

2. During the morning and with the aid of the excavator working as a crane and carrier, the gang selected rails from the storage site. The rails were secured onto a bogie wagon for eventual passage back to Woody Bay. These longer 30' rails are destined to be used in a project to re-rail the headshunt siding which has recently had its retaining wall rebuilt.

3. The gang begin to walk back from Killington Lane (now temporarily without its wooden shelter - blown away last week, now recovered and in storage awaiting repairs.) The two rail-built posts are to hold a sign promoting the railway extension. Similar rails will also be used to anchor the rebuilt shelter.

4. Regularly the subject of these news photographs, Dick Gunn pauses by the completed headshunt retaining wall to observe D6652 with an afternoon passenger train.

5. Another job on today was to remove piles of cut down branches and scrub from the field back to the car park. Richard Willey and all the Thursday Gang toiled backwards and forwards with handfuls of branches each time

6. Work continues as the train passes. A shredder will be used next week, to dispose of the waste.

7. D6652 with the four-carriage passenger train today, approaching Woody Bay

8. Everyone enjoying their 3pm tea and cake break in the marquee at Woody Bay.

Words and pictures by Nigel Thompson

BONUS PICTURES

Graham Bendell was also on site today taking pictures as work progressed, which he has compiled into a supplementary report to Nigel's.

Moving the piles of brushwood - The Truth!

Three of the Thursday Gang, Nigel Spencer, John Villers and Graham Bendell, were left at Woody Bay to deal with the plies of brushwood cut during the Working Weekend in January (I'm not sure what we had done to deserve it!!).

As the material would not burn and the ground was too wet to allow the excavator to move it, it fell to us to manhandle it across the field to the car park, where it was stacked to await chipping next week.

9. The task was to move this lot from here...

10. ...to here.

11. The passage of the half-term service trains were a welcome distraction.

12. The strain is showing!

By lunchtime one pile was moved and a start made on the second. Richard Willey joined us after lunch and by the time the rest of the gang returned from Killington Lane, pile two had gone. It was remarkable how quickly the tea break was called once the rest had joined in the task!. By close of play, big inroads had been made into pile three. The rest will be moved as the first job next Thursday morning. I managed a trip to Killington Lane (where I discovered Nigel was working) but I took the following:

13. Train crew (shown here at Woody Bay) for the day. Driver; Graham Varney, trainee driver; Doug Mills, and guard; Jim Price. Doug, a new face on Thursday, was introduced to the gang during lunch.