Boris

Some more progress to report on the layout recently, point rodding is coming on very slowly and Kev wired something really cool up tonight as well. It's a slow job, but the rodding and crank benches are gradually spreading and ideally by the time they are finished it will be dry enough for the ballast to dry in the cupboards at the club. We had a playing night last week and it was remarked on that you when shunting the yard you only need to control one point to shunt the yard once your loco is inside the traps. It's much easier to shunt the yard from the front of the layout rather than reaching over all the running lines and platforms, so it was commented wouldn't it be nice to have a local control for that point. Kev, who is our resident electrical genius, suggest a latching DPDT switch like they use on stomp boxes on guitars, and promptly turned up with one this week and installed it in about 20 minutes. It means we can control the yard from either the control box, or have someone with the walkabout controller at the front of the layout shunting the yard and interacting with the public. I think its really cool anyway, even if nobody else does! The gratuitous gubbins shot showing the DPDT switch on its mount replicating exactly the arrangement in the control box. The mounting on the front of the layout, this will be hidden behind the front curtain so as to discourage little fingers playing, but you will be able to feel for it if you know its there. I was so impressed I even shot a video.

Those BDAs are well worn all right, they are the 70s conversions from the steam era bolsters Es and still have horse hooks on them!

To be fair the new bridge bits all came without strap protectors as well from Tees yard

I told you it wasn't exciting! Everything survived the heavy rain quite well over the weekend as it was prolonged rather than one intense burst. Not much exciting has happened aside from a few more bits of scrap being taken away. Concrete pouring should commence by the end of this week. Rebar because some people are excited by that kind of thing.

They are but get quite busy with the Roc being up there now. There is another car park also open further down Leeman Road past the old NRM entrance on the left hand side just before you go under the low bridge with the railway line on top of it.

NYMRFOOTAGE is a third party channel run by one of the local enthusiasts. I can't really just wander about the site randomly taking photos I am afraid, access is work related and there isn't that much of interest going on at the moment. It's literally just a mass of rebar with some formers until concrete pumping starts next week. I mean I can take loads of pictures of the Readymix lorries if you like?

No, that's his role model, he's more of a miniature traffic cone kind of person

- How do they plan to get the concrete on to the bridge deck - pipe it from the road / overbridge or is there closer access available for concrete mixer trucks? Well they could use the station car park which is only the other side of the EWS wagon in the picture BUT the bridge to the station car park has a weight limit of just 3.5 tonnes so this isn't practical. They are going to implement traffic control and pump the concrete down the main road in the background of shot 2. A standard concrete line pump will run up to 150 metres (450 feet or so) which is well within the reach of the main road above the grass back, again in picture 2, In the gap between the two rail bridges (2nd pic), there is what looks like a new footway - does the lower level of this provide the route for point rodding / signal wire / comms cabling etc? That is indeed a walkway, there is a matching one of the other side above the river so the bridge can be inspected, I believe the footway panels will also lift out to enable access further down. We won't be running S&T equipment along the underside of the walkway as its a pain to sort out/access. I am not sure where the new rodding and signal wire run will go i.e. whether it crosses the new span or the old span, I'll find out for you. The one in the photo will likely see regular use by signalmen taking tokens to longer Up trains in the summer.

ICI on Teesside had a set of RCH 5 plank wagons that were still used on the mainline for moving salt into the 1970s, until one pulled apart in the middle of a train due to rot. Although to be fair i think they were local trip workings.

To be honest you haven't missed much, they are still on adding rebar to the deck, which isn't the most interesting thing to show but there are a couple of photos anyway. Next week the concrete arrives for the deck so that should be a little more interesting for you all as it will finally start looking like a bridge. I mean realistically its not that far off being finished, the rest of it is putting rail and S&T back together. In other news we have had the point rodding (probably 70+ years old) regalvanised and started

Yeah, often some good stuff in the south sidings near the ROC. And Pacers, get them whilst you can.

After all the activity recently it has been a relatively quiet week bridge wise, prepping the deck for its concrete by adding the rebar, but the remaining span has also had another coat of paint. Other than that the rest of the activity has been logistical, the road railer has gone to Pickering for the Bridge 8 project and the Kirow 1200 was taken to Grosmont MPD on Saturday to allow the crane staff to service it prior to departing today.

I'm reserving judgement until I've seem it all put together with track etc. Driving past from the road it doesn't look massively intrusive, but my inner nerd would have liked to see something a bit more heritage looknig. Then again you can't have everything, at the end of the day it means you can still see steam trains running, which was at risk if the bridge wasn't done.

The technical term is shitehawk

It looks bridge like now chaps, they got the 2nd beam in yesterday and the deck girders in today. You are right Andy, having looked at it properly there are indeed ribs on the outside, and i think photograph 3 answers your other question?

No, ask Dr Pepper.

What you see is what you get I'm afraid, I would have liked fake rivets along the tops as well personally.

Busy day on site today, both trimmers have been placed on top of the sill beams and a deck beam laid. The plan is for the 2nd beam to go in tomorrow and then get the deck on. Also a lot of concrete is due to be delivered fairly soon!

This week has seemed fairly quiet by comparison to last week, with the old bridge removed it allowed the stone abutments to be reduced in height and repaired before the new concrete sill beams are added. in addition the remaining part of bridge 27 that will carry the siding has been cleaned up and painted whilst it is accessible. The big Kirov 1200 is only here until the end of January as it is needed for a job near Lowestoft in February. It goes back to Grosmont on the 25th January with a view to using the MPD facilities for servicing and then departs on the evening of the 29th. The smaller Kirov, the 810 will be at the NYMR until March I believe as once bridge 27 has been completed there is another bridge near Pickering to replace, bridge 8. Just to give you some idea of why bridge 8 also needs to be replaced, this is the wear on one of the abutments.

That's kind of a bit of string question depending on weight, distance etc. As a rough guide we've transported a wagon as a return load for an otherwise empty trailer from the South Coast to North Yorkshire for £700, whereas a tender loco can cost up to £4000 or so.

We had a play tonight now the extension is all laid and wired. A conflat and a Palvan sitting in the goods shed road. Shock van load testing the buffer stops on the extension board A J50 on part of the coal set in the back road of the platforms Load testing the extension, the snowplough is on the Goods/Yard road, the Deltic with the suspicious number is on the main and the J50 is on the Goods shed extension.

Off the top of my head I'm not 100% sure, either 1908 or 1912, I have a photo somewhere of it being done which I will try and dig out.

Kev is indeed there with the crane. It will look similar is the best I can say, there won't be a girder in the 6 foot between the running lines, in effect they are creating 2 seperate bridges, one with the sidings and one with the running lines. They can't model Brucey because he is that small everyone would complain the scale is wrong!

So this is the end of the first proper week on Bridge 27 and for all intents and purposes it has been removed. The new bridge kit arrived before Xmas and was taken to Goathland, it has been sat waiting for about 3 weeks now. The Railway shut on the 1st January and the Kirow cranes arrived on the evening of the 2nd, and were taken to the work site on the 3rd January, the rest of the day was spent shunting everything into the right place. Whilst all this was taking place the track and S&T equipment over the old bridge was removed and by Monday work could start on the bridge itself. The first job after ballast clearing was to remove the bitumen from the original deck to all it to be burnt off safely. You can see both the protective layer of bitumen here and how thin the deck actually is. The other side decking was in far better condition having been replaced in the 80s by Ian Storey Engineering. By Wednesday the decking was ready to commence removal, because of the size it can out in 4 chunks Looking into the hole is quite freaky, but it gets bigger quickly as the first of the main girders are removed. Which was quickly followed by the 2nd one These girders were then reduced in size and taken away by rail for disposal. You can see the size of the hole in the railway line now, that is the access scaffolding underneath. The remaining span isn't too bad as it hasn't had the loadings of the others and only carries a siding, so it will be refurbished and repainted instead of being removed. Just to remind everyone, this is a construction work site, I'm afraid you can't just walk in and have a look, but you can get an excellent view from the road, and the public grassed areas visible on the left and right of the last photo. You can also get a reasonable view from the cattle dock and footbridge, which are being left open again for public viewing. Photos by j Bruce

Quite a lot of progress to write up with photos, just shy on time. Aiming to sit down and do week 1 tomorrow