Jet powered rail mounted snow cleraer!

I got to the Rocks By Rail Museum yesterday and Ray, Who I have posted about before in this blog, said he had something to show me. Now at 94 years of youngness, Ray has over the years accumulated many interesting things including this picture that he showed me.

You may, like I did to Ray, ask what it is. The back of the photo explains!

Sometimes you just have to imagine what something was like and other times there is a photo to show exactly what it was like! Being 1947, which was a harsh Winter in the UK, and just two years after World War 2 came to an end and just a few years after the introduction of the jet engine we have this, a rail mounted snow blowing jet engine! The photo does show the thing in operation with ballast flying through the air as well as snow which looks somewhat dangerous. Of course. the operator in his Trilby hat will be well protected from any ballast coming his way!

Being intrigued by this contraption I did find a Pathe News silent clip about it on YouTube which makes it all look even more dangerous! Click here to see that clip.

On a much more safer level and building up to the VJ80 event the Museum has next week, Ben was giving loco Singapore a good clean. The loco is s registered War Memorial and the Museum will be playing host to families of those whose relatives were involved in the Far East conflict during WW2 and there will be a number of guests representing various organisations and bodies who have a connection with events.

Meanwhile Thomas and John were painting Mr D's buffers in readiness for Sunday's Driver 4 a Fiver event. Thomas was most keen to point out the cloth to catch any drips of red paint and not stain the floor. I made the point that a good painter shouldn't have any drips of paint!

For me, it was a day of further vegetational butchery including cut back the self seeded trees in this clam bucket.

Amazing how nature can take over!