Rail Grinder

The Fires of Hell
Originally uploaded by Crowcombe Al.

This photo is a great shot (though I say it myself !) of the Rail Grinder that came to sort out the WSR back in January 2008. We enjoyed watching it going up and down the line and you must admit it does make for good photos. However, as time went on, it became obvious that all was not well on the rails.

To cut a long and badly-managed story short, it appears that the grinding produced a rail profile that was not compatible with the steam engines that run on this line. As you would expect, the "rivet counters" have a long and very tedious explanation but we won't go into that here.

So most of the steam engines were removed from service whilst bits of the line were "shaped" (my word) by hand. So for about 6 weeks we only had one little tank engine that dared to venture out whilst most of the work was handled by diesels, or Smelly Nellys as they're called - and for good reason.

But now we're back to normal - we hope - and the plc is going to have an enquiry into the problems. We look forward to seeing the results, assuming that they are made public.