Tuesday 26th May- An Evening Special

This was the first of a series of working parties scheduled for Tuesday evenings in May, June, and July (and possibly longer), with a good turn out of 9 meeting at M&FM to undertake a variety of tasks. With the command of both Wickham Trolleys and an occupation of the whole line, Ian J, Martin W, Eddie, and Keith H headed off to the Ropley to Alresford section, and Martin R, John, Iain, Tony, and Adrian C focussed on the M&FM to Alton section.

The Alresford team, armed with a strimmer and hedge cutter, started to clear undergrowth away around the lineside furniture, working from Sun Lane cutting at Alresford back towards Ropley, and by the end of the session had reached Northside View Pway hut. They also collected redundant rail keys from Northside foot crossing (taken out and replaced with Panloc rail fastenings several months before), and deposited them at Alresford Station for use in the head shunt sidings.

The Alton party meanwhile loaded a spare track timber from the site of the next Pway hut at Grosvenor embankment, and transported it to the Chawton Heights hut for use in the completion of the interior bench seating, stopping off  enroute to replace a cracked junction plate in the Shrave cutting. They then loaded the Wickham trailer with the the left over materials and tools from the construction works, and transported them to the Grosvenor hut site and M&FM respectively, also clearing away a pile of timber offcuts. The opportunity was also taken to use the generator and angle grinder to cut off an unsightly reinforcement bar that was sticking up out of the ground in the area of an original demolished concrete hut at the site.

A very productive evening on both counts, with all looking forward to the next session.