Work in Progress - 25th March 2010

Local Devon group members began the March working weekend today at the L&BR's trackbed near Parracombe. Last year much of the trackbed, cutting and adjacent land was cleared of undergrowth during several weekends by volunteers from the Isle of Wight Railway and other Trust members.

The main job today was to begin replacing the old stockproof fencing on the south side (down side) of the line - remember at this point the railway is on an east-west heading as it curves around the dip in which the village of Parracombe is located. The L&BR's land here is the trackbed between Parracombe Lane and Cricket Field Lane which is under 1/4 mile.

The fields that border the railway trackbed on either side are used for grazing sheep, so in addition to maintenance and drainage of the trackbed,  work also needs to be carried out on the fencinf in order to prevent livestock from straying onto our trackbed, which is why attention to the fences was the first task of the weekend.

We began by cutting and clearing the remains of the old stock netting fence and wires between the concrete posts. The ground between the posts was levelled and undergrowth removed to allow easier and tighter fiting of the new stock fence to be installed this weekend. Later several 'new' posts were brought to site ready to fill in the few gaps amongst the original SR concrete post line.

1. Robin Edwards and Martin Andrews begin clearing the old fence from the trackbed side at Parracombe Lane bridge.

2. Martyn Budd in the mini-digger clearing the remains of the old fence between the original concrete posts.

3. The digger tidies the undergrowth carefully between concrete posts.

4. Dave Tooke and Robin Edwards by the fence line.

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Back at Woody Bay Dick Gunn has built a replica finial for the down starter signal.

5. Here it is shown on the signal during a trial fitting.

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Photos and text - Nigel Thompson