Dydd Gwyl Dewi 09

On the 28/02 & 01/03/09 Simon's Miniature Railway came back to the railway with Tinker and their Trojan to celebrate St. David's Day (or Dydd Gwyl Dewi). A nice relaxed couple of days playing with fine trains on a fine miniature railway. As well as night running we also saw Dave Mills' fine petrol loco roar in to life for a lap, but sadly failing with carburetor troubles, but he's getting there. Photos here www.joflrailway.fpic.co.uk/c1662373.html and a video:

East Anglian's Running Day

On Wednesday 18th of February we had some 16mm East Anglian modellers come over for an afternoon, one of whom brought a 3 1/2" loco, it wasn't putting the power down well enough so the solution was to sit on it creating a ride on 3 1/2" loco, perhaps a first?
Paul Sherwood produced this fine video:

Waggon Under Construction

I'm currently building myself a 5in gauge wagon as part of my GCSE in Resistant Materials, it is likely that it'll spend most of its time at the railway so I thought it would be relevant to this blog, below is a photo of it in its current state, a rolling chassis.

The Stokerton Snowman

Yesterday the smallest working party I've ever organised took place, there was one happy soul, me, I'll be honest in saying that I got so excited by the snow that the only work I did was oil the points for the East Anglians who are visiting during half term. This was after I'd cleared the track of snow and made sure all the track was willing to work, which it was, so I played trains! My photos are available HERE.

Better Packing

Prior to the 08 Open Day Ieuan one of the railway's owners spent days clearing back vegetation along the whole railway, this meant that with a little feteling the full length of the railway could be used. While majority of the Moles Hill - Highfield section ran remarkably well for a railway that hadn't seen intense service for 7-8 years there were a couple locations which some stock disagreed with, the decision was therefore taken to re-ballast the section of the furthest section of the balloon loop where some rail joints were nearing on an inch between the rails. Luckily on this section the track panels were removable so we were able to lift them and dig out the ballast, pegs had been fitted when the railway was built to keep the track alignment true, but in order to realign the panels and thus removing the rail joint gaps the pegs were taken out, should the track not keep its alignment it is likely we will reinstate them.

The geotextile needs trimming back

We have been having problems with the ridgety of the track panels and as the sleepers are not very deep a twist in the panels has become apparent, my idea (seriously mine!!) to solve this was to screw batons of 2x1 wood to the underside of a few of the sleepers in order to give more of an area to pack. We have trialled this on the balloon loop and it looks as though it will work, when the new ballast was first put in there was a obvious reverse cant which was almost impossible to pack out, however now with the batons in place it appears the packing will now hold. It is proposed that we shall now work on using this system in the Bangor Road LC - Moles Hill cutting as the twist is very evident there.

During a break from all of this the opportunity was taken to beat back some of the brambles on the outside of the loop so access could be gained to some new photographic vantage points. Such as these:

I feel it'd be nice to strip back some of the moss as the walling is rather beautiful

Thanks go to Ellis Morey for these photos

MEG - A New Loco

Prior to the 2008 Open Day the railway's owners purchased a new loco for operation on their line, it's a Ride on Railway 'Hercules' Class it is to be named 'Meg' after one of the owners previous dogs. 'Meg' is very well suited to the railway as there is a motor for each wheel set making it a powerful beast!

Open Day 2008 - How it Went

I cannot believe it has taken me so long to report back on the 2008 Open Day, well it has and I'm sure that really there is no point in a long report as it was so long ago, instead I shall just post the video and the link to the photo gallery encase you've missed them. I shall say however that it went very well, 'Tinker' showed it's true strength hauling roughly 6 adults at a time up our somewhat steep gradients, there was inevitably quite a large amount of derailments, mainly on the balloon loop, and given that it had received only a minimum of feteling before the heaviest service it had seen for about 8 years was run it was to be expected. My heartfelt thanks go to everyone who made the day so special, Ieuan & Wendy for allowing the event to take place and clearing the shrubbery, Simon Pugh of Simon's Miniature Railway for bringing his stock, the guests for making the running of trains more worthwhile, but most of all to our group of volunteers who have got the railway up to scratch. Photos are HERE. Coincidentally, if the 1998 leaflet for the railway is to be believed 2008 marked the 25th year since Terry Robinson began construction of the railway, lets hope it sees another 25 years!

The Countdown has Begun!

Train services from Stokerton will be resumed at this weekend's invitation only open day, trains will be hauled by visting the visiting Sweet Pea and the railway's latest edition to the fleet a Ride on Railways 'Hercules'! Photos during the course of next week!

Stokerton - Re-opening Soon!

Today was a very productive day in Bethesda, while engineering work was scheduled to take place on the turnouts at Stokerton this did not happen due to the vast growth of vegetation over the past month (it seems every time we are getting somewhere we end up taking steps backwards). The first job therefore was to trim back the various branches along the mainline between Stokerton & Bangor Road LC, The trimming will be completed to Moles Hill by local volunteer Ellis when he fancies. At Stokerton a large amount of vegetation was trimmed back & some of the ivy was removed from the roof of the shed (more to come). Meanwhile the pressure washer was in action cleaning the steps that lead up to Stokerton, this exercise also took place on the waiting area and platforms (see photo below). It is hoped the whole of Stokerton will be sprayed with weedkiller in the next couple of weeks to kill off the plants growing on trackbed.
We are pleased to announce that we will have an 0-4-2T Sweet Pea from Simon's Miniature Railway visiting in August, this is an invitation only event which will mark a significant milestone in the railway's preservation history.

Clean!

Almost There!

Moles Hill is now in sight! On 19/04/08 we completed the replacement of ballast between Bangor Road LC and Moles Hill, a little more shovel packing is required on the curve, but that is all. Other jobs completed were the freeing off of more points at Stokerton & Moles Hill, along with yet more leaf clearance.

Photos depicting a high-speed run from Bangor Road LC to Stokerton have been compiled in to a video and uploaded to the popular website YouTube to genereate publicity for the website.

Ballast removal well underway















Track work now fit for running (in fact the photo was taken from a waggon, sadly human powered, as Harry forgot his loco)