Departmental Reports, December 15th 2002 ­April 7th 2003 - by Nick Howes.

Civil Works

The loading gauge bar has been repaired and put back up on the reinforced concrete frame, and tied via a chain at the correct height.

Contract work: The station front gates were replaced, nearer to the road with a new set almost twice the width of the old.

Contract work: The stables was scaffolded and the roof tiles removed . All timber work except the 3 main rafters and 2 purlins were replaced, with new felt and battens, and all main and ridge tiles relaid and the ridge tiles cemented. New 9-inch timber fascias and bargeboards were erected and painted in Southern Stone colour, and new guttering erected also.

Contract work: The Goods shed guttering, down pipes, fascias, soffits and bargeboards were completely replaced and painted in southern stone and green. The 1995 stove chimney slate damage was repaired.

Contract work: The station canopy steelwork was shot blasted and primed, and will soon be back in two tone green.

The platform around the north end station canopy steel upright was excavated, enabling the upright to be unbolted from the base plate angle irons and the 4 inch north end canopy sag corrected by jacking of the whole north end of the structure and upright and the bullhead rail upright fishplate holes bolted back into the base angles using a different hole.

The damaged sections of the 1885 natural spring culvert system coming off Norton Down and running below the down retaining wall below the cess have been replaced by 60 new Hanson concrete sections, each 4 feet long.

The Ladies waiting room, General waiting room and booking office are nearly finished. Picture rail, skirting, and ladies roller blinds are up and decorating almost over. The fireplaces are finished and contractors laid a rich maroon lino floor throughout. Windows are now being painted white and green outside.

The Brophy shed, which has been blocking our siding areas for 8 years, has been removed, for reconstruction as a private dragster garage in Wrington, leaving the foundations and inner walls to be broken up.

The Down platform is due to be completely resurfaced in the coming fortnight, ahead of which repairs are being made to the rear wall of the platform and new bullhead fence rails put in and 200 new blue bricks laid, along with electric pipes and bullhead lamp standard.

Permanent way

Ten months after the first panel of Down main was laid in the Down platform, we now have 300 feet of freshly, fully ballasted bullhead rail double track on timber sleepers throughout the platforms and have also acquired a buffer stop from Avon Street Bristol, now in situ at the North, bridge garden end of the site at the head of the Down main out beyond the foot crossing, which has the sleeper crossing laid from platform to platform, albeit not cut in tight around the chair heads with a circular saw yet.

140 concrete sleepers have also been laid on the down trackbed by JCB at the southern end of our current 1,200-foot site, where the spring culvert was undamaged. At the time of writing, a further 500 out of 1800 F27 concrete sleepers on order have been delivered, in a massive stack against the up cess just south of the loading gauge, almost enough for a mile of single, or half mile of double track.

The embankments have been under regular attack recently in a concentrated effort to remove all trees within the up side BR fence boundary along the whole 1200 foot site and all trees within ten feet of the top of the down side retaining wall, and also everything beyond which is dead or leaning over a certain angle.

Signal and Telegraph

The SR lattice signal post, acquired from Bitton has been shot blasted, painted and welded onto the original 1949 Evans O’Donnell Up Starter base plate at the north end of the up platform using J&C Birds JCB, a sling, rope and half a dozen steadying pairs of hands. Before this could be achieved, the twisted, gas torched stump of the original stolen lattice post had been removed previously and the JCB excavated down a 7 feet deep hole, exposing the 2 by 2 foot fluted foundation steel footing, which was straightened back vertical, and packed tightly, before the hole was refilled and the post hoisted upright and welded onto the base by 4 corner rods and 3 square steel clamps.

The signal post is gloss white and a black six-foot base, with shot blasted and painted ladder, new platform timbers, guardrail, counter weight etc to be added on soon.

Carriage and Wagon

The box van is finished externally except for the doors, and is having new floorboards and inner skin added. Four new corner posts have been bought for the outside brake van.

Loco Dept

A 1935 LNER Wickham trolley, belonging to members of the LMS Society has been recovered from Long Marston Ex MOD Site, and is being worked on in the Goods Shed. The flywheel engine is running like a sewing machine and hopefully we will be able to christen the Down main running line soon with the trolley. A group of members are purchasing a 350 hp Hunslet 0-6-0 Diesel Shunter from the Somerset and Dorset Locomotive Company at Yeovil steam centre. The diesel is operational, and in Prussian blue and should be delivered this Autumn when all the track work should be linked up and ready to see some real standard gauge S&D action!

Catering

Nothing to report regarding the acquisition of a suitable buffet coach.

Sales

With the completion of the Ladies Waiting Room, our sales team should be up and running again soon with a good selection of books, videos, prints and children’s gifts.

Museum

We are preparing a lottery bid in the region of £49,000 to transform the stables into an S&D museum, and to landscape the lawn, and embankment slope up to the Pill box, along with associated coaling stage, diesel and water tanks, picnic area and fencing etc.

Extension

With a dedicated lineside maintenance team, and steady stream of permanent way materials arriving, we are obviously keen to extended our running line as far south up the 1 in 53 incline as possible, to give the first steam loco, whatever class it may be, as good a run as possible sometime in the first half of 2004. We have been in positive contact with the next 2 trackbed section owners, which will take us half a mile from our Silver Street buffer stop, and are in the process of drawing up standard Heritage Railway Association agreements with them, the next step after that being planning permission from Bath and North-East Somerset Council for the rights to actually clear and grade that crucial 1650 feet of trackbed beyond our current barrier of red angle iron.

Imminent Site Work

By the end next week, J&C Bird plant hire, with their trusty JCB should be back, working more wonders and bringing an operational running line a giant step nearer reality!

The new concrete drains will be backfilled and a further 72 concrete F27 sleepers laid back towards the station. A week later, should see the delivery of a 104 foot, flat bottom 16 chain right hand main line point, 305 timber sleepers and 10 lengths of bullhead rail from the Nottingham Sleeper Company. A forklift will unload the two 60 foot trailers of materials, and drop all 56-point sleepers onto their final beds.

The Brophy shed concrete foundations and our Goods shed foundations will be broken up and removed in 8 x 16 ton lorries and all the trackbed of the sidings, goods road and car park graded and lowered to original BR levels, and 90 feet of flat bottom rail on 36 concrete sleepers laid through the Goods Shed, with the 1999 forecourt track panels dropped to their original levels also, requiring “shunting “ back and forth of the two brake vans.

As soon as all 1800 concrete sleepers are delivered, we will be able to lay all 305 triple track timber sleepers, from the platforms south to the 104 foot point, and connect the point rails up with the down main line in the platform.

We also have on order, a second 82 foot point, to split the shed and dock roads just north of the loading gauge. A shed road to transhipment road (point no. 3) will have to wait a little longer. We are purchasing a compressor and hopefully more flat bottom rail to extend the head of steel past the Down main siding point, up to and beyond our red site barrier.

The resurfaced Down platform will look fantastic, and along with a turfed bridge garden, completed fence lines, signal ladder and fittings, really will turn back the clock! The sound of steam is drawing ever closer...