October 2007
July 2007
August 2006
April 2006
August 2005
January 2005
It's a long time since I sat down at the keyboard to produce an update
on the news from the railway, so here is the news.
The main effort this year has been aimed at building a Carriage shed and Engine Shed for the 18" gauge rolling stock that can be seen near the cafe on the main site. The first job was to clear the concrete slab next to the Friends room, of the Bicton Gardens Carriages. This was only achieved thanks to a substantial donation by one of our volunteers that allowed the hire of a crane to move the carriages and a number of other artifacts off the slab.
Stage two required Bob Bray (Bob the Builder) to bring his mini digger in a make a trench for electrical conduit from the Friends room to the slab. Now Colin & Chris are busily making a foundation to extend the slab south, as the slab isn't big enough to take two buildings as it stands (or should that be lies?). Once the foundations are complete, we will then be able to start erection of the new buildings.
On the 2'- 62" railway there has been little progress. We ran out of rail at the start of the year and although Robin Parkinson has been able to find some more for us, there has been a transportation problem which prevented the rail being moved from Crossness to the Gunpowder Mills.
In the mean time things have not been totally dead. Barry Passey Jnr. has built us an Anti Aircraft Gun, which has been mounted on an old Bishopton wagon, for the amusement of the Land
Train passengers.
We have also started preparations to extend our sidings area, in the hope that we will be getting some more rolling stock. And to this end Lawrence Burnett has arranged with B & Q to supply us with broken paving stones & bricks, which we can use as a hardcore base for the
new track. Thank you Very Much B & Q.
"Hang on a second" I hear you say, "you just said you had run out of rail, so how can you be laying sidings?" Well, we still have a number of lengths of 251b/yard rail which came from Bishopton, along with points and rolling Stock, but this rail is too light-weight to be used as main line rail but is perfectly adequate for sidings use.
Once the public season is over, we will be ripping out the curve from 83B onto the main line, installing a set of points, and re-aligning the curve from the points to the mainline, and preparations for this are going very well at present.
838 (our engine shed and workshop) has undergone a transformation over the last few months, with the installation of a water tank, sink, hot water supply, hand drier & fridge, to name but a few of the improvements.
Well dear friends, that's all for now, but don't forget, if you are visiting the mills any time, come up and see us. We are always pleased to show visitors around and explain what we are trying to do.
John Wilson
22/08/2005
