A sunny and dry but crisp St. George's Day greeted the early morning gang. After the usual teas and catching up they separated and departed for their duties.
Brian Hi, Keith H, and Pete went up the line to Alton , Adrian C, Corina and Brian Ha went down line to Alresford on the line inspection and point oiling tasks, and Eddie, Martin W, John and Ian R continued with the fishplate oiling, with Martin R and Neil joining them later. Due to the extra diesel services this Saturday, they switched from the Shrave cutting near Hampshire Hunt bridge with its reverse curves and limited visibility to the Soke cutting. Starting from the country end points at M&FM they made good progress, with returns to base for a cuppa and biscuits and later for lunch. They reached milepost 54 1/2 by the end of the day with more than 3/4 of a mile of joints attended to.
Ian J meanwhile continued with the strimming of the top of the downside bank towards Northside Crossing, before choral duties beckoned (and he ran out of fuel!).
The walking gangs joined back up at M&FM after the usual breakfast's and catching the "Diesel" service back, and went on to carry out the rest of the day's duties. Adrian C, Corina, Pete and Keith H went up to Chawton Heights to continue with the fencing, managing to install droppers in the first, completed section of re-wiring, and going on to run a top wire in the next section.
After lunch Corina left the gang to go up to Chawton Heights hut to finish painting the hut sign.
Brian Hi and Paul (who had joined him after catching the railbus from Farnham because of the landslip just outside on the mainline towards Bentley), went down to the cutting just outside Alton where they finished the litter picking exercise (4 bags worth) and collected the 11 bags of rubbish which Brian and Bill had filled the previous week.
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