Like my Man Cave, the rocks By Rail Museum was cold! In fact even the heater in the lunch cabin had stopped working so I joked that we should open the fridge door to warm the place up! I think it would have worked too! However with some outside jobs to be done most people were being warmed by the work they were involved in including the continued work on finishing the land drainage schemme started last year.
Obviously the work is going well if the smiles on faces are to be believed!
Sammy Strimmer was back with me for the day as the seemingly never ending task of clearing the bone yard continues! Now David believes there are some weighbridge parts in the undergrowth and stated a mission to find them - brave man is all I can say!
If he goes much further he could be lost!
He never did find them but I, on the other hand discovered these two RSJs just lurking in the undergrowth as such things do!
Arriving at the Museum I popped my head into the cafe where I found several volunteers trying to put together the recently purchased flat pack flat pack display case for the various fossils recently donated to the Museum. They were having problems as not only were the instructions in Italian, they were for a completely different display case! Add to that that there were too many fastenings and the whole episode was becoming fraught!
However, at last the case was together and the fossils are now on full display ready for next year opening.
What should also be ready for next year is the additional drainage system being installed to link up to that installed earlier this year. Hopefully that will go a lot more quickly and should make the site around the toilet block somewhat less like a paddy field after a few days of rain.
Having actually got to the signing in room I found John being studious for a change. Apparently we have a manual for loco Mr. D which is very helpful as John needs to order some parts for the braking system. Not sure where he will get them from as the loco is over 50 years old!
For me, it was a day of being reunited with Sammy Strimmer as I continued my task of clearing the boneyard of overgrowth so that we can actually see what has been stored away for years and may actually be of use and save buying in new things! This was the start of the day.
Todays main find was not more rocks or fossils but bricks! Hundreds of them! Now nicely stacked, apart from the broken ones which can be used as hardcore, and that was a back breaking job, at least we know how many and where they are although I suspect there are still more to find in the rest of the yard! It does look a lot more accessible now!
Richard gave me a hand in clearing out the strimmed vegetation and built this rather fine looking bonfire pile!
There will no doubt be several more piles to go yet as there is a lot more bone yard to clear!
Some jobs at the Rocks By Rail Museum are constructive and produce superb results such as the repainting of Elizabeth which Mick has been doing over the last few weeks.
Mick still has one side to paint but Elizabeth looks fantastic!
Other jobs, which usually involve me, are less constructive, even destructive in nature! Take for example my latest escapades in clearing the undergrowth in the. as I have termed it. 'Boneyard'.I did make a failed attempt at clearing out his jungle last Winter but hopefully this year will see more progress but it is all very destructive. Sammy Strimmer is my weapon of choice along with cutters.
In that lot there are some interesting artefacts to be discovered!
Catching up om things at the Rocks By Rail Museum showed that signs are proliferating! No idea why but obviously a sign of the times!
There was this old tea triolley.....
...now repurposed as a, as the sign says, work bench!
Paintiing on steam loco Barrington continues and the wet paint sign was, well painted in wet paint!
There is an awful lot of scrap at the museum but we now have a sign to tell us it is scrap!
Eric has done a great job on painting the narrow gauge skip wagon....
That's all folks! No, it is not the end of WMD, but as the cartoons used to say, That's all folks, refers to the end of another season of events at the Rocks By Rail Museum. Where has a year gone as it only seems like a few months ago we closed the 2024 season!
Anyway, whilst previous years final events have been blessed with Autumnal brightness, this year we had wetness! The morning was dry but by about 1pm the clouds had opened and we all got soaked! The prospect of rain had not put visitors off and there was a good attendance and the volunteers all had fun so it was a winning day!
I was shunting, as seems the norm these days, assisted by John, Pete and Dave as well as Martyn operating the face shovel and with Mr. D as our shunting loco.
The Rocks By rail Museum cannot be accused of not being innovative. I have posted before about the oversized washing machine, otherwise known as a concrete mixer! This is used to wash ballast and if you wonder if ballast can get dirty you should see what comes out of the mixer apart from the clean ballast!. One of the weak areas of the concept has been the discharge shoot. Various concoctions have been put together over the years but all have eventually failed. So, this Winters task is to sort that out with a bespoke heavy duty shoot and welder ace Rob is getting on with it.
For me, I was not admiring the overgrowth in the two storage sidings.
So, out came Sammy Strimmer and vegetational butchery ensued!
Now, I do have to admire that! Just need to get between and under the wagons next! All in a day at the Museum!
