It was a day of shunting for me at the Rocks By Rail Museum on Bank Holiday Monday.
Whilst many of our guest were enjoying brake van rides....
...the 'action' was taking place in the quarry!
...That is the coupling between the locomotive and the first wagon of the rake to be shunted.
Mr D was the shunting loco ably driven by John.
This is the face shovel ably operated by Martyn.
Every hour or so we swop the rake of wagons. So this set of tipplers is replaced by these four hoppers.
The hoppers do make an impressive sight.
For those doing the shunting swapping the two rakes over, getting the brake van on the right end of the outgoing rake and the loco at the other can be a hectic time but having done this for many times we can generally swap the two in about ten minutes!
My fellow shunter, Gary, took the opportunity whilst being in the quarry of looking over his new purchase...
.. one of only two LIMA cranes in the UK. It needs a lot of work but hopefully Gary will be able to get it into some form of working order in the next few years when it may be able to be on show to visitors!
