Aln Valley Railway

Longhoughton Goods Yard - TS, BS, KSW, MH, Continuation of tasks, It started wet and we made it wetter! Kay and Baz had arranged beforehand to continue their search for the elusive gas pipe near the A1 bypass, leaving Tom and Mark at Longhoughton. Kay had obtained plans of the gas pipeline via Transco and by lifting a manhole cover on the bypass embankment the line was established. Unfortunately for us the plans were shown to be slightly erroneous. By digging a series of holes in the track bed down to the warning tape we can confirm that the gas pipe runs down the centre of the track bed. Fortunately where the farm road comes in from Alndyke onto the track bed the farmer has maintained the drainage. At Longhoughton the “Bodgit and Scarper”™ high pressure water jet set-up worked a treat and helped remove some of the caked on cement on the Ruston 165DE. Tom and Mark then burnt off some of the felled gorse bushes, branches and scraps of useless wood. Lunch round a camp fire - oh, the want of some spuds and tin foil… Another rubbish sweep of the site was made and then we attacked some of the concrete lumps lying around with the kango hammer. Tom also did a bit more work on the McConnell digger and has also fitted all required pins, etc. for the linkage on the tractor. DMS was at the C15PS AGM at Bury.