Sunday 1st March 2009 David spending his money at the railway's tea and ticket stall with Jenny, whilst Keith works on the electric locomotive "The Duke".  Keith has added some handrails and other items to enhance the locomotive. There is still some work to do on the locomotive this coming Tuesday, whilst I continue to service the railway's lawn mower. This Tuesday 3rd Mach is the first of the "Meet the members" working days". The weather forecast is for rain (as of Sunday night) but we will be able carry on working in the shed, with the hot water boiler on for cups of tea or coffee for us or anyone who wants to give us a visit. Click  for more details.

Although the steam locomotive "Remus" was not able to enter service it was put on display for the children to have a look at, also it seems David's rucksack and a 1 litre bottle of cola. Keith takes "The Duke" for a test run on the siding. How many wheels can be counted in the view on the right? Two forms of electric traction are seen in this photograph.

Tuesday 3rd March 2009 We were lucky that the rain arrived at 12.30 pm, certainly enough to well top up the rain barrels at home. We did not have many members to meet and certainly no visitors, but then again there were very few people in the park either. Even the ducks were not having their usual good turn out of people to feed them. We did put the hot water boiler on and were able to make ourselves a cup of tea. With the anticipated rain we pressed on with a couple of jobs we had planned for.   

Keith working on "The Duke" fitting more handrails and some lights for he front of the loco. The hot water boiler is in the foreground ready for any visitors who might have turned up.   

On my list of work for the day was to continue working on the societies lawnmower. With a chill wind "old faithful" not me!!! but the Green Grass hat came in very useful. With most of the rust off it was time for some Hammerite painting. I am not a fond lover of this paint but it does have its uses especially on rust.  Now here is a paint much easier to use, Macphersons many of us used gallons of the stuff at the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft. It is good quality paint, easy to use and dries fairly quickly. Enough of all this free advertising in other words the self portrait is my hand finishing off the last bit painting on tops of the railings on Thorne Central station. Our next "Meet the Members" working day is on Tuesday 10th  March. See you then.

Just me, Keith and the ducks today and one visitor to ask how we were doing. Above left the youngsters have kindly done some mountaineering on our pile of ballast and caused an avalanche of chippings onto our tracks. Whilst Keith was working on the lights for "The Duke" it was my task to clean up and paint the point work next to the shed. After the overnight bad weather the ducks were taking forty winks with one eye open for any potential mum's with their youngsters and the ever important food. The Thorne Moorends Town Council team have been busy preparing the boarders for the new flowers.   

Blue, skies and warm sunshine greeted the members for the working day out on the tracks. Work was concentrated on the "Duck Pond Corner" on the inner track. For a while due to subsidence in the park something quite common apparently, the inner track has been sinking during the last twelve months. The track securing bolts were slackened of and the track lifted with new ballast added. We also had to remove some of the grass and weeds that have encroached onto the tracks.   

Our members hard at work with barrows, shovels, spades even a lawn mower transformed the track bed in readiness for the Spring and Summer Season. We were all well shattered I think sums it up, but well worth the effort.

After a hard days rest, time for a break and relax in the late winter sunshine, well that was our excuse.

We teamed up with the Thorne Moorends Community Radio group to put on a display at the NHS event held in the Winning Post Community Centre at Moorends. Keith and myself were dressed in our railway T-shirts and hats. The "Thorne Central" station sign also was taken along plus other railway items including one of the bogies for the proposed new Deltic locomotive. Keith and myself took the opportunity to have a health check. In my case I had to take the results to the Health Centre, not too good must be the stress of all this voluntary work!

Keith is very good at repairing our locomotives and rolling stock,  but today he had a new challenge and that was to repair the councils lawn mower. The cutting height adjuster had sheered off. Within 15 minutes the lawn mower was back in service.
Meanwhile my challenge was to clear out the set points that access the out circuit from the loco shed. As part of the Health and safety work all the protruding track ends, metal sleepers etc received a coat of paint. A chance to remove some of the weeds too. 

E-mail received from our member Jack Salter

Just to let you know that I have bought a large petrol hydraulic loco, which once I have tided up will be suitable for pulling our heaviest trains.
It just fits on my trailer so I should be able to bring to & from the park.
Does anyone know anything of the history of this loco, it was built by Tom Smith in 1976 (he built non steam locos for Cromar White) and was with a quad art set of large GRP carriages, it has been in a "collectors" garage in Wales for the last 15 years?
It's currently 10 1/4 gauge (shouldn't be difficult to convert as Cromar White listed this model as available in either 71/4 or 10 1/4g with the same dimensions).