St Christopher locomotive progress

Whilst at this year's Dad's Army Day, I took the opportunity to check out the progress being made on St Christopher and was rather surprised to find it in pieces!

The boiler has been bead blasted to thoroughly clean it out, and Phil is making changes to the braking system so that it's compatible with the air braking system used on the Waveney carriages.

Boiler cleaned and painted

Cab and saddle tanks

Meanwhile Chris and Adam have made splendid progress on the platform, and are hoping that the workshop can temporarily pop the cab back onto the chassis so they can check clearances, then whilst they make the track and platform adjustments the workshop can get the locomotive finished.

Waveney platform work coming along well

Once thing for certain is that the white post on the left will have to be moved otherwise St Christopher will not even get as far as the platform!

Fingers crossed St Christopher should be in service for the bank holiday weekend at the end of May — it will certainly be nice to have the Waveney Valley line back in operation.

All Change - Preparations for St Christopher locomotive

Exmoor St Christopher

With no Rosenkavalier, the Waveney Valley Line has been out of action for the past few weeks. Now that a new 15″ locomotive St Christopher has arrived service should be shortly reinstated — once the platform and some minor locomotive works have been completed. My task today is to help Chris and Adam get the platform ready so that St Christopher can be running as soon as possible.

Royal Coaches and Gallopers (what no trackwork?)

Camera setup for shooting VR

Today's objective was very well-defined: to photograph inside the rooms of both royal coaches in order to create a virtual reality (VR) tour. I have been trying to squeeze the odd room in for the past few weeks but always seemed to run out of time, especially since the locomotive sheds are locked when the workshop finishes for the day.

Of course, I also managed to catch up with the latest on the horse repairs, and a couple of other things.

Bressingham is open!

Getting the Gallopers ready

Today is the first proper day of the 2011 season. Although open during the February half-term week, today marks the start of the season proper with both the Garden and Nursery Lines due to run.

Unfortunately the blocking high pressure weather system we have been enjoying over the last few weeks has retreated to the continent and let the Atlantic south-westerlies back so today's weather is rather dull and damp at 7:30 and not very conducive to kicking things off with a flying start.

Getting ready for 2011 (and some trackwork)

Final touches to the Gallopers platforms

Today is about finishing off the section of the Nursery Line just past the glasshouse and starting on the minor track defects like replacing the odd bad sleeper, straightening kinks and adjusting the gauge where necessary.

Of course there's lots of other things happening and my lunch break is always spent talking to someone about something or other that is going on.