Track side debris!

Out cycling I often usually see a variety of things on the road edge. A lot of litter but then there are the nuts, bolts and washers and other vehicle related parts that fall off vehicles. It is amazing just how much you see and hopefully none of it is related to safety critical parts on vehicles but who knows! 

Railways are not immune either and from my ballast washing escapades I know there are similar things in the ballast. Now you would think that model railways are immune from such things but unfortunately they are not. With todays highly detailed models with many small parts the problem is that they often fall off the model. I have a bag of parts that I have collected over the last few years from around my layouts - part of that 'never throw anything out' mentality that Mrs. Woody rolls her eyes at when I do it! Most parts I have no idea of which model they are from but if I do come across a piece of rolling stock that looks as though it is missing a part the bag is there to look through.

Today I did come across a lone buffer trackside.

I was sure it was not there a day or so ago so it was likely to be off some wagon currently on the layout. Finding which one meant running the trains past me which was a good excuse to have a running session! It didn't take to long to find the wagon with a missing buffer and it was a Dapol Tunnel Cement Wagon.

A quick application of plastic cement saw the buffer back in place and that was one piece of trackside debis that didn't make it into the bag. If only every part was as easy of this!