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Latest News: Archive
August 2003
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Latest News: Archive
August 2003
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Saturday, August 2nd saw a Nenta excursion leaving Dereham for the Severn Valley Railway. The 10 coach train also picked up passengers at Wymondham, Attleborough, Thetford, Ely, March and Peterborough before travelling across country to Kidderminster, where the majority of passengers alighted for a trip on the Severn Valley line. The train continued on to Worcester for passengers wanting to visit the city.
On reaching Bridgnorth most people left the station to visit the town for a meal at one of the many pubs and cafes or to look around and have a ride on the cliff railway between upper and lower town. The train returned to Dereham arriving just before midnight. A long but very enjoyable day.
Most travellers were local, but there was one gentleman who had driven from Preston so that he could ride the branch. The proceeds of the on board raffle amounted to over £400 for MNR funds. Next year's trips from Dereham will be to Canterbury, Dover and the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway in May, with Crewe and Chester following in August.
By Owen Stratford.
A multitude of smaller jobs were carried out today. One team went to Thuxton to cut grass and bushes on the south approach to the station. Another worked on tidying up the area by Hall Lane in Dereham, whilst the third team carried out maintenance on Yaxham crossing before attending to the Norwich Road trespass guards. We all then went to join the Thuxton team on the last train.
Vegetation is back into the program of works, and so we went to Crownthorpe in order to carry out tree removal in the vicinity of bridge 1677. This will prevent tree roots from damaging the brick structure.
Work today focused on correcting a couple of twist faults at Whinburgh. These were jacked and packed to correct the problems before the day became too warm.
The team worked at Garvestone, painting the signal post that is Thuxton up distant. We also strimmed the grass around the crossing, tidying up the area now that the bulk of the growing season is over. As it was too hot to do much, we came home early.
The team split up into two for the day. Half of us spent a long day recovering a turnout from Cambridge that was kindly donated by Network Rail. The other half worked on the siding in Dereham.
We carried out a little resleepering on the siding in the morning and then set off after lunch to change a longitudinal timber at bridge 1683.
We spent all day on Saturday working towards the completion of the siding in Dereham. We lifted and packed the last four panels, which gives a siding length of over a quarter of a mile. Once completed, we then started to prepare the buffer stop, by inserting new sleepers. With another day's work, all will be completed.
PW went off to mow the banks on the Dereham side of Thuxton. A great deal was achieved and the whole area looks much better.
By Derrick Plyer.
Half of the Signal Box Restoration Team arrived and erected the tower scaffold to continue final top-coating of the external cream paint.
Another long session of applying sealant to fill gaps between the internal ceiling boards, a thankless task in current temperatures as the rising heat gets trapped above window level. A good way to shed a few pounds in sweat with the need to keep moving the scaffold frame! Late afternoon, attention transferred to the cooler locking room in order to sand down the instrument shelf which had been filled the previous week. Ian had already let in quite a number of wood plugs to blank off redundant holes but the shelf front will need re-facing.
A donated B.R. Firebucket was received and taken away for restoration as 'homework'.
Work today concentrated on heavy sanding of the Instrument Shelf top surface followed by undercoating. A very reasonable finish was achieved considering the number of plugs and blocks that had been let in. Our attention then transferred upstairs to undercoat the sealant that had been applied to the internal boarding on both end walls last week.
Filling and sanding of the Instrument Shelf front started. Originally because of its bad condition a ply facing had been considered but this is now on hold until the results of our efforts are clearer. After lunch, top coating of the internal end boarding was completed plus one of the fixed window frames.
Final top-coating of cream was being applied to the front elevation of the box.
Heavy sanding of the block instrument shelf was followed by undercoating. The finish on the shelf front appears good enough not to require facing with ply as originally proposed. Further sealing of the board gaps in the ceiling took the rest of the day.
Primer undercoating of sealant was carried out in the morning and then cream top-coating of part of the ceiling and two window frames were completed during the afternoon.