Work in Progress: 18th April

A truly historic week in the rebirth of the L&BR with the delivery of the two historic carriages No.s 7 & 17.

With great interest the regular volunteers enjoyed their chance to look over the carriages as they receive the finishing touches to the braking gear whilst inside the shed. It was a busy day itself on the railway with the visitors about as well as a walking party reserving part of the train for their trip to Killington Lane and subsequent walk around Parracombe.

1. The Thursday Gang of volunteers continue the fence-building by the miniature railway. Old rails cut to length and with holes drilled are taken to site on the platform trolley

2. Mixing cement for the base of the holes for the rail built fence posts

3. The fencing wire is strung out between the posts

4. Another gang in the car park tidy the pile of recently-cut branches and logs. It was too windy for a bonfire today...

5. ...so Julian & Lindsay Palmer and Martin Steel relocated to some cleaning-up jobs around the station. The fire buckets and milk churns were the first to receive the treatment.

6. Dave Evans cleans the poster board by the fire bucket stand

7. Van 23 received a tidy-up inside and many boxes of old railway magazines were disposed of (Whilst the railway is happy to receive any railway-related books for second-hand resale, we cannot accept any more magazines due to the lack of storage space and very low sales prospects). Volunteers also cleaned Van 23s exterior as LILLA arrives with the passenger train

8. A major shunt around this week to free space in the shed for the heritage carriages; the loading dock has seen all the brown SR-liveried wagons coupled together in the headshunt siding

9. The SR Box Vans, Bogie Open and Brake Van look good in the spring sunshine

10. Driver Phil Clarke with LILLA paid a rare visit to the car park transhipment siding during the afternoon

11. LILLA with the well-wagon during shunting to the car park. Hunslet Diesel HEDDON HALL was in use at the shed, with Coach 17 over the pit

12. A rare steam-hauled works train, as LILLA runs back with the well -wagon to the loading dock

Words and pictures by Nigel Thompson