Saturday 21st January

Readers may be wondering why a post was not published covering the previous Saturday (14th). The reason for this was that it was the annual Saturday Pway Gang post Xmas meal at O' Connor's Secret Garden Bistro in Alton, with sixteen members in attendance.

Coming back to this Saturday, a very small gang of four (John, Keith H and Brian's Hi and Ha) turned up at HQ in dry but freezing conditions. It was so cold that the track ballast was frozen precluding the digging out of beds for further chair bolt changing work. It was decided therefore to begin the annual check and replacement of broken RNB6 track fastenings earlier than scheduled, starting at Boyneswood bridge and working  in the Shrave cutting towards Alton. Twenty top plates were changed and six loose fastenings re-tightened, reaching milepost 53. This was interrupted for a while by the obligatory Wickham Trolley run to Alton for breakfast.