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Latest News: Archive
November 2004
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Latest News: Archive
November 2004
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By Owen Stratford and Matt Goodrum.
Today was spent in Dereham Yard. Unfortunately the works train was not available and so further ballast works were completed tidying up the shoulders.
A small crew of only 3 volunteers boarded the train to Thuxton down distant signal and began to clear scrub to improve the view. We soon had a roaring fire going which raised our spirits despite the farmer muck-spreading in the field opposite!
The works train was sent out today to carry out some lifting and packing of joints at the south end of Danemoor Bank.
We took out the works train once more to lift and pack joints on Danemoor Bank. Once on site, progress was good and we headed back to Dereham in the early afternoon. The gang stopped off to backfill and box off sleepers after tamping took place around bridge 1691. Meanwhile, Trevor and Owen had a meeting to attend.
The PW team carried on with the vegetation south of Thuxton today. The weather was rather dull and damp and we failed to get the bonfire to do much more than smoulder despite much attention. Nevertheless, a reasonable quantity of brush and scrub was removed and stacked ready for burning later.
By Terry Mann.
Only a few hours spent trying to restore the generator by two volunteers (Vic and Terry) since the last report because we have now received the plans for constructing a base for the water tower project our time has been taken up with preparing the foundations for that structure.
Unfortunately since we washed out the generator its insulation resistance has not recovered to anything like an acceptable value. We have had the windings inspected by a professional electrical engineer and will be implementing his recommendations to try and find the source of the problem. The good news is that most of the windings have a good insulation resistance so we are not anticipating a complete rewind.
By Roy Malyon.
We have been digging out the foundations for the new water tower at Dereham for some time now. This work is necessary for next year's steam-hauled services.
We placed 20 tonnes of stone in the dug foundations as a base - this involved 10 volunteers working on the day to prepare and improve the access for the heavy lorry to back right to the site. This preparation is also required to enable the ready mixed concrete lorries to deliver their loads which we hope will be before the end of this month.
We have now spread and compacted the stone, and the reinforcing steel has been delivered to site at a cost of approx £750 + VAT. Assembly will begin soon.
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Installing reinforcing rods for the water tower base. 16th November 2004. Photo: Terry Mann |
It is very pleasant to sit down when doing a job at the railway and Ernie and Arnold excelled themselves sitting down to place the spacing 'bones' beneath the reinforcing for the water tower base.
By sitting down, their weight is on the stone, and it is possible to lift the reinforcing sheets to place the spacers. The work is magnificent as the pictures show, but hopefully next week it will be surrounded with 12 cubic metres of type RC35 concrete.
12 cubic metres of ready mixed concrete was poured today over the reinforcing steel to form the cement slab base of the Water Tower.
Many volunteers have struggled with this project and the 35mm tolerance in the steel reinforcing, that the plan stated, was difficult to achieve.
Grateful thanks must go to every volunteer who rose to this difficult challenge. The end result, even helped by ideal weather conditions, is far better than many dared hope.