The Forgotten End of the Railway

Although currently out of use for regular passenger trains, the 5 3/4 miles of track between Leeming Bar and the East Coast Main Line at Castle Hills (Northallerton) still sees occasional traffic, including most recently visiting steam loco 35018 British India Line. We've also got an incoming railtour on September 1st, and of course we're obliged to maintain the whole line in a useable condition should the MOD ever wish to run a freight train to Redmire.

So this August/ September sees a package of works at the eastern extremity of the railway to basically keep it going! Works include heavy spot- resleepering between Ladyfield user- worked crossing and the River Wiske viaduct, track and deck renewal through Ainderby Station level crossing, edge beam renewal at Yafforth and last but not least, upgrading of road and rail signal lights to LEDs, also at Yafforth AOCL.

The Wednesday gang helped with taking delivery of new crossing edge beams and deck units at Ainderby, after which Andy W marked- up 60 life expired sleepers at Ladyfield. Saturday saw the gang dig the sleepers out of the weed- choked ash "ballast" ready for changing, followed by another tree- bashing session to let some daylight in.

Good to see a couple of new volunteers, Steve and Dave (thank heavens they're not called Andy): we really need all the help we can get!