The steam show is coming.

With continuing late nights & phone calls at all hours. Must mean its getting close to our annual steam & vintage show. Being held at the railway in the field by the car park over the weekend of the 25th & 26th of July. Only our 2nd year and word seems to be spreading. Entrys to date include

Vintage cars & lorries
Vintage tractors & stationary engines
Miniature Steam traction engines
Static displays
Fully licenced bar & refreshments availble
Working model boats on the lake courtesy of the Shepton Mallet Drifters
Musical entertainment from the Two Castles Youth band on the Sat Only
Childrens fun fair


A little bit of something for everyone. Entry is just the cost of your train ticket & a small donation. See you there. I'll pop some photos from last years on after the weekend

Auction action at the GLR this June

We have 2 big auctions at the Gartell light Railway this June.

1st is the DVCA Summer classic car & Automobila auction. Viewing by catalogue only on the 24/6/09, with the auction on the Thursday 25/06/09. Visit their website for more information on www.dvca.co.uk

2nd is the Talisman Railwayana Auction. Viewing & auction on the same day Saturday 27/06/09. Again as with the previous auction held by them, many S&DJR lots have ben entered, please find some of them listed below. Visit there site at www.talismanauctions.co.uk.

S&DJR ITEMS:- Firebuckets Notice, Trespass Notice, Beware Of Trains Notice, Evercreech Junction and Templecombe Plated Handlamps, Radstock Plated PW Trolley Lamp, 12" Dial Wall Clock (Ex Bath Loco), 73050 Loco Worksplate, 92205 Loco Smokebox Plate, 71G Shedplate (EX 45440), Templecombe Driver's Box, Presentation Coat Of Arms, Corfe Mullen Lever Plate, Full Title Enamel Poster Board Header, Named Instrument Plates, Signal Box Registers, Wagon and Luggage Labels, Milepost (Ex Stalbridge), Bournemouth West Junction Enamel Signal Box Board, Single Line Tablets Shillingstone - Blandford (Fibre), Shillingstone - Blandford (Steel), Bath - Midford (Alloy), Templecombe - Stalbridge (Fibre), Bath plated Milk Churn.


Oh, and just a reminder, as if having these on beforehand wasn't quite enough. WE OPEN ON THE SUNDAY 28/06/09 FROM 10.30 full train service all day, with the last train being at 16.30

Think i'm going to have the next week of the recover.

Random photos - work update shhhhh

Whilist i got 5, here's some random piccy's i've found on my work computer. Ooops.

Good train in Common Lane Sidings

Yours truly trying to find the right size hammer to hit my thumb. Operation successful.

Mike Lucas doing his thing. Sign writing the milk tank.

Da Da. One milk Tank sign written

Driver James on his first sole run after driver training on the Big Bagley. Heater On James??

Star of our first open day 2009

On the one hand it seems to have been a long winter. On the other, where the hell has it gone, we've not done half the thing's we were planning to do & the next minute its the first open day, very scary.


However, having seen her under construction for several years now, one of the best things about our Easter open day apart from the weather & the wonderful passengers (a lot of new faces as well) was of course the first running of No.9 Jean, the GLR's second steam loco.


Alan "Chalky" White has done himself proud once again, with construction of his 4" Fowler Road Loco, restoration of his Fowler road roller "Progress" & not to mention one of the constructors of our first loco, Mr G at the North Dorset Locomotive Works, being just some of his previous works of art. If you own a oo model railway, i as well as yourself know the occasional issue of locos out of the box, don't run, DE-rail, poor running, etc. Now think on the lines of a 2 foot gauge loco out the box. Problems, Na. The only one that appeared all day was a slight leak on the air brake system somewhere (now fixed). There had been a couple afternoons of gentle running in light & with a wagon or two but that's it. How to test your new loco?? Answer a) Gentle maneuver's in the yard & shunt the odd wagon. b) Run a light goods in between passenger services to get a feel for the old girl. c) Double head the first passenger train of the day. If you answered c, congratulations. Yes Chalk's way, get on with it, if it breaks, his got something to fix. He's at his happiest when he's mending or creating.


Still enough of me going on, some photos i think. see ya

New track for the Somerset & Dorset

As noted on a previous post, I've had some broadband issues. Still here's a selection of photos from our weekend of track renew.

We removed the old track in complete panels. There Merlo came in very handy. Also, handy them coming out whole, as the plan as soon as the higher powers allow is to re-install them the other side of the hopeful new crossing at Common Lane.

Start of the relaying

Couple of John's lad from the business side helping out. Dan - the chap in the hi-vis only got back from his honeymoon a couple of day previous. Good Luck, matey
Plant & laser level technology. Tolerance to 00.01 of mm.

3/4 of the way there. Not re-ballasted yet but getting there.
As we re-levelled the track we found that the crossing needed redoing & we had 6 spare concretes left, so its now done past the crossing. Ready to do the next lot.

Where the track has been levelled, some parts now are 2 foot off of the original trackbed that was left.

Pretty much done. In total we dropped approx 48 ton of new ballast on this section.

If Tiscali made broadband packages

This is not the view of the GLR. This is mine.

Apologies for the lack of updates/contacting people for the Gartell Light Railway. I've now been without broadband for some considerable time now.

If Tiscali made broadband, they'd probably make the worst broadband package in the world.

Talking to a call centre in Bombay, correction on hold to a call centre in Bombay for 40Min's every day to hear someone who hasn't got a clue and a small grasp on the English language, reading a script of they're current faults. I never realised that Wincanton was connected to the exchanges at Manchester, Isslington, Chelmsford, Woodham-Ferrers, Wickford, Ilford-North.

Rant over. I will try and sort something. Might have to do a couple using work PC, shhhhh

Laters

Thank you for Visiting the GLR model railway 2009

Here's some pictures from the model show at the start of the month. A very good turn out of both exhibitors & public, especially when you consider that 10 miles away east, nothing could move because of the snow. Goes to show we were right & that the odd couple of layouts that were missing no-one noticed.


Once again thanks for visiting. We hope you all enjoyed it. Next years will be on the 13 & 14 Feb and believe it or not, our 5th annual exhibition. Slightly scary i think.



The Burnham Model Railway Club Tea Drinking Display Team

John from Turleigh Models at Bruton with a vast array of modeling stuff

Still snow on the ground but the car park is filling up nicely. By the middle of Saturday it was full

One of are expert model makers & general mischief creator Barry Baker with one the the Burham boys

Treacle Mining from Exmoor in a briefcase

Boys over from Bridport

David from Shaftesbury & Gillingham with his new n Gauge

The Albany G Gauge all the way from Surrey. This chap very kindly for a small donation allows the kids to use the railway. From the donations he raised, which we organised to go to the Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance, the sum of £50.00. Fantastic.