|
Latest News: Archive
September 2002
|
|
|
Latest News: Archive
September 2002
|
Kimberley & Carleton Forehoe Parish Council have been awarded a grant from the Countryside Agency under the Vital Villages Scheme to re-open Kimberley Park Station. The grant will see the repair and regauging of the platform, provision of a platform shelter, lighting, replica signage and cycle racks. In addition, the grant provides for a footpath linking the Station with the village green. MNR volunteers will be undertaking the platform works over the forthcoming months.
By Owen Stratford.
In preparation for the use of the ballast hoppers in 4 weeks time, they were all given a health check including the filling of all the oil boxes and checking of mechanisms. We then proceeded to the signal box to complete the cleaning and painting of the remaining parts of the electric locking frame.
Another day was spent working on the siding in Dereham. We had enough people to carry out a two pronged approach to the construction. Barry, Arnold, Roland and Owen turned the remaining rails into their chairs and then worked all day dismantling some selected panels in order to recover good sleepers to replace those missing in the siding. A sleeper with all of its fittings on is very heavy, and after trolleying them all along the siding, we were quite tired!! Meanwhile Trevor, Ian and Ross were working on inserting them all under the track.
The weather was appalling, it being both windy and raining hard. Lack of volunteers, combined with the bad weather, thwarted the planned day's work, so instead we went out to Garvestone to lift a closed accommodation crossing. This originally allowed access between two fields on either side of the line, but the land ownership has since changed. The crossing will be moved to Kimberley to replace a life-expired one. After lunch we identified sleepers at Dereham to be taken down the line to change those under the replaced deck.
Saturday was spent working on the siding, inserting more sleepers. We also planted more signal pulley stakes leading toward the box from the up starter at Dereham.
Some preparations were made for Norwich Road crossing. Ballast was shovelled out of sleeper bays from around the crossing and the trespass guards were removed. In the afternoon, chairs were removed from rotten sleepers and the materials sorted. The signal wire was also fixed to the newly planted stakes.
The works train, hauled by 31538, went to Wymondham in order to drop rails and sleepers at various locations. A replica GER crossing keeper's hut was taken to Thuxton to replace a small shed. By the time we returned, Ian had it up and standing, and was fixing the roof to it!
With work on the signal box progressing well, Terry, Barney and Owen cleaned the old paint off of ten signal levers. These all required dismantling first and then the tough layers of paint could be ground off.
With only a low turnout of volunteers, probably because of next week's big job, only four people set off to dig out sleepers at Yaxham. Despite this a reasonable 26 were dug out.
Once again there was a lack of people. We could not get on with the main jobs as a result, but instead did a few useful little jobs including checking the tools for next week and getting signal box components ready.
On the Friday evening, we had a good turnout of 20 volunteers and all of the expected plant turned up on cue. This included roads contractors from Norfolk County Council, an 80 tonne crane from Southtown Crane Hire in Yarmouth and a JCB. We set about removing track components whilst waiting for 18:00 which was the time when the road was to be closed. Once the road had been closed, the massive crane was positioned--taking up the entire width of Norwich Road--and the gates were lifted off. The road contractors than set about breaking up the old road surface. Lighting had been set up around the crossing as we were working till late in the evening, and by the time the track was ready to come out it was quite dark. The track did not come out without a struggle, and to remove it we had to peel it up from the ground! By the time this was completed it was time to stop as we did not wish to disturb the residents after 22:00.
Work started again on Saturday morning bright and early at 7:30. Once again we had plenty of people and they were all needed. The first task was to dig down to a firm base, removing old spent ballast and track remnants. The crossing used to be worked by wheel from the signal box and we were continually coming across remains of rodding runs and large blocks of concrete. There was also a wooden support running the entire width of the crossing from the time when it had a timber deck which the digger struggled to remove. By this time it was late morning and it was time to move the new track into position. After some slight adjustment of the rails surrounding the crossing both panels were craned into their final resting place. We also installed signal ducting at the same time for both wire to work signals and cables to control colour light signals further out.
After lunch we set about the task of packing the first panel to the required height and joining up all of the components. After several hours the down side was ready for testing. We used 50 019 'Ramillies' to carry out the inaugural run, it passing over at walking pace first to bed everything down and then several faster runs were made since the track behaves differently at speed. Any sleepers that had settled were repacked and the process repeated. The road contractors could then begin filling in whilst we set about the up line. This was similarly treated and we finished the track work by 22:00.
Whilst there was time with the digger spare, spoil was moved away from the site and a pipe was installed in the yard to connect the signalbox up to an electricity supply. A buffer stop in Norwich Road Yard was also lowered into the ground.
The tarmac was arriving on the Sunday morning at 7:30 so it was another early start to position and pin down the timber edging to the road. This had mostly been cut to size the previous day. Meanwhile the rest of the infill was put in position and compacted to ensure a good road surface. Tarmac laying started at about 9:00 and by lunch time it was all but finished. There just remained the job of clearing up.
By Richard Cullen.
Steve has started the fight south of the farmers crossing to North Elmham. On Saturday 14th he started cutting back between the track using his strimmer but the undergrowth was too much and the strimmer wasn't man enough. He had to revert to manual labour lashing out at the brambles, nettles and gorse, eventually clearing 5 sections of track until his scythe snapped at the handle.
The area cleared will enable a rail trolley to proceed south without vegetation interfering with the movement enabling water to be transported as refills for spraying.
Richard has painted out the glass at the rear of the lamp case closest to the Station Master's house in order to prevent light spilling onto our neighbour's property, and a switch has also been fitted to allow this particular lamp to be isolated from the ring unless required for events or for operational reasons.
The latest apple variety to come into season is the "Norfolk Beauty" cooking apple, and these are being sold on the platform as and when they ripen. Eileen has also planted some new shrubs in the station garden.
By Roy Malyon, Ernie Woolley and Barney Stratford.
A Drainage Team, augmented for the occasion to 8 - an excellent turnout for a weekday - headed out to the site of the proposed run-round loop at Wymondham to continue with the work on the new up-side drains.
By a miracle of forward planning, blocks, sand and cement had been delivered that morning at Cavick crossing, so the first job was to deliver the blocks to the catchpit sites (by rail trolley) and set up the cement mixer. Because there were sufficient "blocklayers" among the team it was possible to work on the three catchpits simultaneously, which meant that the mortar mixing team had to work at the double!
It was an unusually long day, none of us getting home before 7.00pm, but the task was completed, the catchpits are standing there, squarely and proudly, and hopefully will last as long as the original GER models.
A large gang headed out to Kimberley to clear vegetation that was fouling a footpath across an adjacent farmer's land. After a hard day's work, the obstruction was cleared and we also managed to remove a large amount of vegetation from the boundary fence.
Roy and Barney went out to spray encroaching scrub in Whinburgh Cutting south of Bridge 1689.
By Graham Moates.
Volunteers have been busy at Kimberley Park Station levelling and regauging the platform edge slabs which had subsided over the past thirty years of disuse. It is hoped to have all the slabs reset and the gradient of the platform ramp reduced by the middle of October.
By Tony Hendry.
Four lamp posts made from old rail have now been put in place at Thuxton Station. The crossing keeper's hut which is being built by Ian is also coming on well.