Today was the second of our winter occupation days, and an early mist was not going to put us off. After our early morning cup of tea and discussion on the days tasks, which included a few requests from Bernie out Manager, we split into two main gangs.
Eddie, Ian R, John, and Keith H took the one operational Wickham Trolley to carry on with the chair replacement programme. Their main task was to remove 14 or so difficult nuts to allow the chairs to be replaced the following week, and by the end of the day they had managed to process 12 of them. Another task was to lubricate the pointwork at Alton Station, and spanner check fishplate bolts following sleeper and rail changing work carried out by the mid week gang during the course of the week.
The other gang of Adrian C, Ian J, Graham, Pete, and Brian where tasked with digging out ballast beds in the timbers in point number 15A, at the access to Ropley Yard from the main line, where the mid week gang will be replacing all of the softwood timbers with hardwood ones. This left Corina at base to carry on with the refurbishment of the whistle boards, and she also found time to travel to Alresford and Ropley to lubricate the pointwork at the Stations.
The weather was just perfect for the digging out, cool but not cold. Either side of lunch they made steady progress, digging out a large part of the switch area (21 beds- Ed), and filling 22 bulk bags with old, spent ballast. Tired and weary, they felt satisfied with the days efforts. They also had the benefit of working by the side of the newly turned out Ivatt tank loco. Very nice indeed.
STOP PRESS
Several members of the gang attended the annual Volunteer's Party at the Alton Maltings in the evening. A time to relax after a hard day's work.
My dear Jes, you are too polite in not mentioning our chair replacement programme was seriously impeded because someone had decided to block the line at Ropley - with a diesel!I hope it's not there this coming weekend or we may have to retaliate, say take a rail out either end of Ropley!
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