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Latest News: Archive
September 2003
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Latest News: Archive
September 2003
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By Owen Stratford.
We spent Saturday clearing vegetation around bridge 1690 in Whinburgh cutting. Ivy was removed from the bridge and the area cleared up.
Once again in Whinburgh cutting, we were removing scrub and trees near bridge 1689. This will stop the vegetation from damaging the structure of the bridge.
We spent Saturday working once again in the yard at Dereham and finally completed the siding by changing around 15 sleepers in the last 4 panels and fitting the remaining sleepers to the buffer stop. This was misaligned in relation to the siding and so we had to rotate it using jacks and blocks. This was accomplished surprisingly easily and we had finished by the afternoon. We were joined for the day by four new volunteers who are involved with the campaign to reopen the Cambridge to St Ives railway. They were here to learn about railway maintenance. We wish them every success with their campaign against the railway being buried under yet more tarmac.
We were back in Whinburgh Cutting clearing further vegetation around bridge 1690. We also burned some of the material that was cut in the previous week, taking care to keep the fire under close control as we were near to a road and didn't wish to alarm passers-by.
Work today concentrated on clearing up in Dereham Yard. With the work on the siding completed, there were lots of sleeper remains and odd bits of metalwork lying around.
Now that the hot weather of summer is over, the seasonal jobs can begin. One of these is fishplate greasing. This can only be done during a certain range of temperatures in order to be able to dismantle and reassemble the plates joining the rails together. The grease enables the rails to expand and avoids the track buckling. We started in Dereham and covered over two miles of track to beyond Yaxham thanks to the fantastic turnout of volunteers.
We were at Kimberley on Sunday widening an accommodation crossing to enable larger farm vehicles to cross. This involved having to partially dismantle what was there, replace a few decaying boards and then increasing the width of the crossing by adding another complete row of sleepers. Ballast was then placed at the edges to start the new ramps up to it.
By Derrick Plyer.
Derrick continued with the top coating of the ceiling boards, and one window frame received its first coat of cream.
Some more of the ceiling and the final fixed window frame was painted. Additionally the instrument shelf stabilising brackets were re-fitted. One of the originals had gone missing so we had another cast. These provide the anchorage for steel stabilising stays which are then attached to the back of the shelf and resist pressure from the signalman when pushing block instrument plungers. The refurbished fire buckets were returned painted and now await lettering and of course a place to hang them!
The station building has now been surrounded by scaffolding and perimeter security fencing as the builders start on the main structure. This required us to remove the replica oil lamps and brackets from the frontage to avoid risk of damage.
At Dereham Central Signal Box, ceiling painting continued as far as we could go - we now await the machining of some replacement boards to match the originals. Sponsorship for replacement heavy duty linoleum is being sought.
Work this week concentrated on external painting of the fixed window frames on the operating floor. Meanwhile, someone sanded down the coal locker and set out lettering on the firebucket.
Primer painting of the coal locker tidied it up a bit but it will need a few woodwork repairs to the hinged lids and lock areas before undercoating. One firebucket was lettered to-day and the second one set out. We had a visit from Richard Pike to view progress and he has kindly offered to help us locate typical lamp shades and an enamel draining board.
A two man working party, consisting of Mike and Pat, completed painting the window frames and you can now get a good impression of how it will look when the sliding windows are replaced and handrails completed.
The second of the firebuckets donated for Dereham Central was lettered up and put aside only for us to be offered yet another bucket! We can never get enough period furniture, and are still short of a couple of buckets outside the renovated waiting room at the north end of Platform 1.
By Rosemary Cooper.
Ex GER, LNER and BR staff assembled at Dereham Station for the 3rd Workers' Reunion. On this occasion it doubled as a birthday celebration for one of the two nonagenarians, Eddie Steer, who was 97 the following day. He was on board with his daughter, grandson and his wife, and great grandson.
The afternoon commenced with a tour of the station site led by Steve Cushion and Graham Moates, where the MNR's future plans were discussed. The visitors then boarded the 15.45 train to have tea served by volunteers. During the trip, the p-way boys boarded the train at Yaxham and managed to devour the leftover scones, sandwiches and cake, washed down by cups of tea. On the return to Dereham, the lads kindly helped bring all the washing up into the station.
As it was the day of the raffle, the railwaymen drew the winning tickets from the thousands to choose from. One of those attending was lucky enough to win a prize!