Thursday, 30 September 2010
Progress Thursday 30th September 2010
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Progress, Tuesday 28th September
Another busy day with activity over the whole network, although it was a dull grey day, everyone had a good glow on!
Starting with the assorted Carriage depts, Painting continued on 50599 with Solebars Buffer beams and exhausts being painted. In the LMS dept, more work was carried out on the internal partitions, and prepping on some of the veneer panels ready for varnishing.
The DST had the boiler sandblasted on Henry Ellison. Once cleaned it was painted with its heat paint, and the main frame was made ready for sand blasting next week.
More sleepers arrived and the works train was assembled. The sleepers were dropped off at various locations for spot resleepering as part of routine maintenance. About 200 old rotters were collected from the relay site and transported to 'storage'. Meanwhile the rest of the per way team changed a lift plate and other bits at Duffield. Two 1000 ltr containers were also transported to Duffield, to provide a temporary water supply.
The Duffield platform team completed squaring off the North end footings of the platform, they also laid out 160 concrete blocks, and filled in the hollows of ones laid last week.
The VCT managed another 40 yards of clearance around mp 135 3/4, and managed two fires, they have started clearing the east side at the same location.
The camera and electrics dept, tidied up the weighbridge, and sourced some electrons for another camera location.
Tomorrow sees all per way staff reporting to Duffield, The Komatsu will be heading out of Duffield first to go flailing.
Phil
Monday, 27 September 2010
Progress Monday 27th September 2010
Sunday, 26 September 2010
Progress, Sunday 26th September
Another bitterly cold day which saw fairly light loadings in comparison to yesterday, which is unusual. Nevertheless, the Day with a Driver guest thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Today the deep cleaning of Iris continued, including a thorough wipe down of the heater ducting and Formica, a hoover out, a further mop out and the cleaning of the bogies on one side.
Elsewhere, work continued on the newly arrived brake van, odd droppings of coal were collected up and the maintenance pit got cleared out with a brush and spade.
At the close of play the Rudd was delivered to the dock.
Many thanks,
Graham Walker via Leigh
Saturday, 25 September 2010
Progress, Saturday 25th September
A hectic sort of a day, with the passenger service doing well for a very cold September day and good progress being made. Today's Day with a Driver guest thoroughly enjoyed himself too.
Attention today was turned towards Iris. The vehicle received a full exterior wash, the windows were painstakingly cleaned properly, the floor was mopped and the stepboards were given a coat of paint. The bogies are the next area to be cleaned.
Elsewhere, some storage bowsers in the yard were organised and the LMSCA continued working in their coach.
Mike Evans via Leigh
Friday, 24 September 2010
Progress Friday 24th September 2010
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Progress Thursday 24th September 2010
Monday, 20 September 2010
Progress Monday 20th September 2010
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Progress Report Sunday the 19th of September 2010
I speak to you now from the parlour bar of the Whore and Trumpet (A
Marston's House), where some of your weary but happy staff are applying,
er, lubrication to their sore parts. Now, we have had a very good day,
with passenger numbers keeping up the recent trend of being better than
last year for this weekend's event, the Home Fleet Gala, where our
entire and utter fleet has been in operation. An early start was
necessarily made with a selection of platform enders banging on the
front door to gather round the class 31 and take large numbers of
photographs. This process continued with the class 20 and (the specially
cleaned) Ferrybridge No 3 and just about anything else that moved and
several things that didn't. The Day with a Driver guest having arrived
from Merseyside also stayed the entire day and was very cheerful about
it. A departing lady visitor remarked that we had a very wonderful "old
station". A word of thanks is due to everyone who has been involved in
any way with the huge effort of this season, whether that is in relation
to events, train and track maintenance, admin, projects or anywhere
around the railway in any way whatsoever. That's a huge THANK YOU.
Around the railway today many other things were taking place. At
Duffield the Sunday gang dealt with 14 welds, clipped up 42 sleepers and
re-arranged their lift plates and generally fettled and re-organised a
multitude of things at Duffield, Mr Tarry presiding. At Wirksworth, the
conscripts were engaged in gardening and in the shed drain work, which
mainly involved breaking rocks. The steam team have begun primer
painting the tank of Henry Ellison and associated tasks. The LMSCA
carried on with their carriages and the recently arrived LMS brakevan
also received some hard work towards its rebuild. In the Gat Ex, further
changing of the FO and TSO armrests proceeded and the gutters were
evacuated. This was followed by window cleaning and New Zealand Egg and
Bacon Pie ("strange but nice")...
That's it for today,
All the best,
Anton
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Progress Sat 18th Sept 2010
Friday, 17 September 2010
Progress, Friday 17th September
A busy day of shunting at Wirksworth Yard, with everything prepared and positioned for this weekend's event.
The car park is at last empty having seen the removal of the Chipper machine first thing and the afternoon taken up with the removal of the very large Vac machine.
More painting of the DMU car in the shed - a reminder to those wishing to sandblast in the area next week, keep well clear of newly painted vehicles - work in progress!
No IMT this week as all hands were involved with stock movements.
Phil
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Progress, Thursday, 16th September
All of today's activity took place at the southern end of the line.
The Platform gang laid 90 concrete blocks and 30 Tactiles at Duffield, they had a good gang and progress was swift.
The VCT continued tidying up where they have been working during the last few weeks, and restarted one fire . They also cleared up a bit after yesterdays demonstration. They also carried out temporary repairs to the very recently installed gateway at Postern Lodge, which has been knocked down - with big tyre marks over it!
The Per way team changed a further 14 sleepers as part of routine maintenance, and started work on clearing two cross drains south of Hazlewood. The works train also carried out much shunting at Duffield yard and have left two wagons in the headshunt inside the tunnel.
Some feckless ne'er-do-well, chopped the security chains at Duffield overnight and made off with some scrap S&T cable, the cost of the cable was negligible as it was very old rubber covered low voltage Track circuit cable with very little metal in. However, if local members can make an occasional check at the Chapel St entrance.
Phil
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Progress, Tuesday 14th September
Firstly a slight oversight, the 80 sleepers laid last Thursday was helped greatly by the Wednesday gang digging out most of them ready for a rapid insertion - great teamwork!
As for today, the Duffield Platform team shunted the yard at Duffield and managed to offload all of the materials brought by train, they also managed to clear the left over materials from the first phase of construction, once again, the Komatsu proved a winner.
The Per way team planted 36 sleepers in the ground, leaving only 36 to complete the present phase to Hazlewood, these will be completed this week. There then remains the insertion of drains and some more sleepers to be inserted at various points.
The VCT had a blazing day with 4 fires, they have completed the clearance of the field that they were working alongside, they were joined by a chainsaw gang who were setting up an area for some demonstration work tomorrow.
The vehicle that was on test for the demonstration was again working in Wirksworth yard, and being used for crew training. Tomorrow will be a hectic day whilst it is being demonstrated to the end user.
The DST, worked in the shed and removed the axle boxes from their project, the sand blasting of the frames should take place tomorrow.
The Carriage team completed the fitting of the ceiling panels, and started worrying about the fitting of the steam heating. Only a few weeks ago they were complaining that it was too hot.
Meanwhile all of the defective windows in the First Open of the Gatex stock have now been replaced, our small team who have tackled this are quite proficient at this task.
The Mess room had its traditional heavy duty clean, and the Booking Hall was ticking over.
Quite a busy day!
Phil
Saturday, 11 September 2010
Progress Saturday 11th September 2010
Friday, 10 September 2010
Progress Friday 10th September 2010
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Progress Thursday 9th September 2010
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
This week has been a difficult one for the Per way team, waiting for sleepers that should have arrived on Monday, and thus being without a train with its luxurious rest and catering facilities. The team have had to handball all tools around the track. Not something to be undertaken lightly - especially when the Tool Van was 1 1/2 miles from the work site. However the team have carried on regardless, and have dug out 80 rotters ready for changing during the two days, they installed 34 yesterday before running out. The new delivery finally arrived after lunch today, and were rushed to site. They were unloaded and laid out ready for insertion. The other part of the train has delivered building materials for the Duffield platform project. Whilst waiting for the sleepers, some cleaning of No3 took place.
A visitor came for a run down the line planning an event to be held here next week, which will demonstrate a new vehicle to Network Rail staff, Paul (head forester) joined us, and pointed out areas that would benefit the full and proper testing of this machine. This will (hopefully) be of help to the VCT next week.
Some gardening was carried out in front of the Booking Hall, and vehicles were moved from the Car Park in readiness for the massive influx of people for the Festival this weekend.
Meanwhile steps were taken to order the remaining sleepers - we shall see what delays can be thought up this time!The big chief welder appeared at Duffield and will commence to weld the alternate joints on the platform line starting tomorrow, and completing the work on Saturday.
Much shunting was carried out at Duffield to get the wagons in the right place for platform work and to get the new consist of the works train.
The Works train will depart from Duffield tomorrow morning, but needs to be back at Wirksworth by close of play with the Rudd in the ballast loading dock. A mini digger will be on site at Duffield tomorrow to assist the platform team.
All that and not an ice cream in sight!
Phil
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Progress Tuesday 7th September 2010
Monday, 6 September 2010
Progress Monday 6th September 2010
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Progress Sunday the 5th of September 2010
A pleasant and rather enjoyable day, dry weather and lots of small
groups of volunteers beavering away at their respective tasks. Between
events, we expected the passenger service to be fairly quiet, but in the
end it did quite well, as did Lorna in the bookshop. We also entertained
another Day with a Driver guest, to his evident satisfaction.
In the engineerium, the steam team proceeded with work on Henry Ellison
and its many respective parts, including the removal of the sandboxes,
this being the stage of taking the locomotive to pieces prior to
refurbishment and eventual re-assembly. The DMU team repaired the
deadman's isolation bar of class 108 50599 and the guards compartment of
that vehicle had its newly repaired roof sanded and given the first of
two coats of paint. The class 31 received routine maintenance.
At Hazelwood, the Bance Bandits (a small sub-team of our world famous
p-way gang) excellently dug out a further 21 sleepers ready for changing
during the coming week and took the number of a random sheep on the line.
Around the yard at Wirksworth, a magistrate of conscripts astonishingly
attempted to give themselves hernias in the process of stoning the up
shed drain, a task begun last week. The Rod and Mary show ran the narrow
gauge and tided the wood store and have requested that "deposits" are
left carefully. The Friends of Ashbourne erected a fence next to the
beer store by way of tidying it up and this was then stained. Its gate
has been given a notice "Danger Electrical Room" which was considered
more of a deterrent to the feckless than "Welcome to the Beer Store". On
the high embankment overlooking the east side of the station, the
guerilla gardeners of Wirksworth began clearance and planning to
potentially turn this area into a garden, from where the General Manager
can oversee the empire whilst calling for a modest glass of Speyside
Pimms in the summer sunshine.
All the best,
Anton
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Progress Saturday 4th September 2010
Friday, 3 September 2010
Progress Friday 3rd September 2010
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Progress Thursday 2nd September 2010
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Progress, Wednesday 1st September
Another day of an Indian summer, with a cold clear start followed by bright sunshine. This meant that the Per Way team managed to get a further 30 sleepers in the ground and are now nearly at 134 1/2.
The Platform department have compacted the MOT (Type 1) and have laid the first 50 or so tactiles on Duffield platform.
The Komatsu made good progress at 49 steps, Ken Rowlands crossing, and Barnsley Lane crossing, all of which had started to disappear, as well as giving a quick trim to other places including some wayward twigs and branches.
The 'monstrous piece of equipage' finally went out on test. Our loading gauge is W6A, whilst the test vehicle was W12 (for you technical persons - in plain language, it was too big, and failed to get beyond Wash Green, however, it managed its tests on the Incline, and braking tests (It spent the first couple of hours having all sorts of bits taken off so that it would fit through the platforms. More testing will be carried out tomorrow.
The Incline service ran, again for the handful of passengers who turned up.
Phil