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Latest News: Archive
March 2005
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Latest News: Archive
March 2005
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47 714 at Wymondham. Photo: James Steward |
The Mid-Norfolk Railway held its spring Diesel Gala weekend over the 12th and 13th of March. Blessed with good weather, the event was again extremely well attended. Cotswold Rail kindly provided class 47 diesel 47 714 for the event. The MNR gala has for the last 3 years been associated with "Brush 4s", and we will soon be home to 47 596 of the Stratford 47 Group. 47 714 is in the now-obsolete Anglia Railways turquoise livery and has recently had vacuum brakes reinstalled, enabling it to directly couple to our vacuum-braked coaching stock. In previous years, visiting air-braked only locos have had to use a translator loco in order to operate the train brakes.
On both days, the opportunity was taken to run the whole train across Norwich Road crossing just north of the station enabling some new photographic opportunities of this rarely-used section. In addition to this, a raffle was held on the trains with the prize being a return cab ride. Well over £100 was raised from this which will go to restoring the coaching stock and Scotty 101.
A number of diesel running days have been announced throughout the year and with the run round loop at Wymondham coming into operation by summer, this will remove the need to top and tail all trains.
The second sponsored walk was again an enjoyable event, with good walking weather for the 45 participants. This year luxury coach travel was provided to take walkers from Dereham to the starting point at County School. The station here was open to enable us to have a look around and see the work the small team is achieving around the wonderful location of our northern outpost.
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Sponsored walkers near Worthing. Photo: Alan Cooper |
There were many opportunities to see the wildlife of rural Norfolk from toads to swans, and rabbits to deer. It was pleasing to see that the vegetation is held back by the annual program of spraying, now the line is accessible and you could almost imagine trains returning to the rails, despite the bumpy ride it would give. With so much work to do on the operating section of the railway I for one tend to forget about the this part of the line, and this served as an excellent reminder of how much more we have in store.
Between County School and North Elmham the line traverses a wide river valley with excellent views across meadows. This section is open to anyone to walk and I would highly recommend it, along with a visit to County School station when open in the summer.
As we proceed south from North Elmham, which is not normally open to walkers, the line crosses a river and starts to climb on a high embankment. With future vegetation clearance we can open up the views here down to the "secret valley" below.
At Hoe the line leaves the river and plunges into a cutting until it emerges just outside Dereham. Even here the wooded sides still provide plenty to see, including ducks swimming in the up side open drainage. As we arrived back in Dereham we could see the progress being made in sleeper changing as the team edge further away from the town. It is pleasing to see the progress being made here, but there is still much more work to do. If you feel that you would like to help in the rewarding task of reopening a railway then please contact the volunteer coordinator.
By Owen Stratford and Matt Goodrum.
Today was spent lifting and packing the north end turnout to enable the line to be re-opened to traffic. Again, snow hampered progress but the result was achieved in the one day.
With the Diesel Gala in full swing, p-way volunteer numbers were understandably rather low. We cut and drilled the last rail on the south end point and made a start on gauging and fitting it. The common crossing was also screwed down. Unfortunately we had a problem with the track gauge, which meant that we now need to re-calibrate it before we can proceed further. The bulk of this point is now complete, with just a check rail left to install, and one rail to complete fastening down.
With work on the points brought to a halt by the breakage of the track gauge, we began assembling the track panels that form the bulk of the run-round loop. We trimmed off the rough ends of several rails, and greased up the fishplates that we intend to fit in the track. Meanwhile, we were spacing out sleepers and dragging up rails for the short headshunt at the south end of the loop.
With superb weather (20 degrees is a nice change from the snow of two weeks ago) we continued with cutting and fitting the panels. The track had every other joint welded up when installed at Cambridge. As a result we have to cut off the old welds and re-drill the ends. All of the cuts have been made but no drilling has taken place as we are waiting for the correct jig. This panel cutting was completed up to the end of the 6th panel, leaving four to do on Sunday. We also moved a rail up to the north end point and installed one rail on the south end head-shunt.
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Assembled track panels at Wymondham. Photo: Owen Stratford |
Today's weather was overcast and damp. We were planning to cut and fit the remaining panels, but unfortunately the rail saw broke down. We changed plans and installed the remaining rail on the south end head-shunt. Ballast was cleaned and placed into the cribs of the south end point in preparation for lifting and packing it. We also fitted the tie bars onto this point.
With the rail saw ably repaired by Matt Goodrum, we were able to carry on with trimming the welds off the ends of the track panels that are being installed at Wymondham. We've also managed to find the correct fitting to enable the rail drill to work with the 98lb rail that we're using, so we could drill the fishplate holes in the newly-cut ends of the rails.
By Terry Mann.
After much effort on 23rd Feb, and with the largest JCB Fast-Track tractor we could borrow, we have been unable to get the crane into the Goods Shed: the ground outside the Goods Shed was too soft for the tractor to get enough grip to push the crane. So we have abandoned moving 'Horace' into the Goods Shed for the foreseeable future and have liaised with Chris Pearson to establish the best place to park the crane for the next stage of the restoration. Unfortunately working on the crane outside will take longer than the current 12 month estimate to complete, and will make cleaning, painting and the electrical repairs much more dependent on the prevailing weather.
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The generator and donkey engine. Photo: Terry Mann |
Work has progressed on reassembly of the generator over the last few weeks with the rotor installed and end covers and bearings bolted up. A full set of brush tensioning springs have been re-manufactured (using an old spring as pattern) and the brush holders refurbished. All the internal wiring has been reconnected and rebound where insulation was poor. Four (of the eight) old brushes were cleaned and temporarily refitted to align the brushgear and the generator then spun over by hand. We were pleasantly surprised to see a reading of 1 Volt appearing at the output terminals.
As there is so much work involved to install the generator and engine into the crane (and that work is some months away), we have rigged up a small donkey engine and vee-belt drive in order to bench test the output. Today, 7th March, we ran the generator up to just above its rated 800 rpm minimum speed and can report it works! A healthy 95 volts was generated whilst discharging into a one kilowatt load and this is in line with the electrical specification which is documented in the literature. Also, our contact with a local company (who have a similar crane) has now provided us with a whole set of new brushes for the generator, hoist, derrick and drive motors.