Steam…

Our day was focused very heavily on tidying up and preparing to install the final dog spikes tomorrow.

However in exciting news… we had to yield our use of the track for this to pass through….

A very bright, shiny and impressive J549 undergoing its first mainline run in just under 500 days!

We enjoyed watching it pass over our recent work at the Bridge so much that on our way back to the Maldon Depot we offered our cheers of support to the loco as it passed over the section of concrete sleepers we completed a few weeks ago.

It was a very impressive sight, sound and like welcoming back an old friend!

Check out the Mechanical blog and the VGR Facebook Page for all the exciting details.

We did do a working test of all the facilities, such as water columns and turntables that haven’t seen much use for 17 odd months, everything behaved perfectly (although we did do a full check over and some minor repair work to both in the previous week in anticipation).

Tomorrow’s gang will have the very exciting task of drilling holes and installing dog spikes, it’s not great fun however it is very literally the last hoorah in regards to rerailing on timber sleepers (the crossing at Sawmill Rd will likely be all concrete so hopefully this will be the last large scale timber sleeper drilling/spiking for some time).

Meeting at Maldon 8am or on site from 8.30am.