Today was mostly outside work as it was a lovely day. We prepared the works train which will be needed for some more track maintenance. Loco cleaning continues with attention paid to all those hard to get at greasy bits. Inside the shed Helga’s boiler is now on the trailer and has had the new […]

More preparations for this Sunday’s open day today with lots of happy workers, Bobby was happy just lying in the sun.

One of the most important days in the railway’s calendar is the visit from the Boiler Inspector for steam testing. Today we tested 6 boilers which all passed. Another important area is the office, which as you can see has very happy staff. We couldn’t resist a run down the line with Victory to do […]

We managed to get a small team together to perform sleeper replacement duties today in readiness for our first Open Day of the year. Jenny took on the roll of works train loco.

This week we did the final preparations on the locos prior to the steam testing which is not far away, this involved quite a bit of shunting the shed around, and coaling them up. The portable engine was steamed today suitably guarded by its driver, with Bobby looking on from the undergrowth.

Although it was very cold today we steamed the Garrett again to check the work we did last week, all was well so we had a little run around the top field a couple of times just to check the drive bearings. Some refurbished parts have been reattached to Helga’s boiler. A new bit of […]

This week on the Garrett traction engine the cylinder cladding was reattached, it was certainly worth the effort to repaint and line it out, it looks very smart. Other jobs from last week’s steaming was to redo a couple of the gaskets and fix some of the smaller pipe runs. On-going jobs are Helga’s boiler […]

This week after reattaching the last few bits the Garrett was steamed, this was successful which after the amount of work that had taken place is good news. The cylinder cladding for the Garrett has been repainted and lined out, and will be refitted soon. Helga had a good clean outside in the sun shine.

The reassembling continues on the Garrett with the lagging and cladding on, this is one of those challenging jobs that’s very satisfying when completed. We had Bobby keeping an eye on us to ensure it was done properly.

Today the recently overhauled SAR bogie which will be a spare one was shunted outside, sporting white walled tyres it looks very smart. Inside the shed Helga’s overhaul is progressing with the boiler removed, and her fittings on the bench to allow them to be overhauled and cleaned up. The Garrett traction engine will shortly […]