Over the past few months, this project seems to have generated an inordinate amount of material that has no place at the site. This includes fittings and equipment that are beyond saving, some that can only be of use elsewhere, and a good deal of the miscellaneous detritus that always seems to accumulate in unmaintained places. Then there's the door.
The signalbox's modern 1940s construction included the use of heavy galvanised steel doors and windowframes. The north door of the operating room is one such, and seems to have been ripped from its hinges before a swift descent onto the ground below. It should be fixable, but not without the metalworking facilities at Ruddington.
Lacking a suitable road vehicle, we hatched a scheme to move the door (and the rest of the junk collection) back to base on a timetabled passenger working. Since Rushcliffe Halt (RH) is a good 250yds south of the signalbox, it would have been quite impractical to carry everything there by hand. Happily, with only the one train in service, we were able to arrange possession of the down side of the loop, and make use of the Permaquip trolley stored at HH. You may recall our testing this a few weeks ago, in rather better weather!
As the first train of the day disappeared around the curve to East Leake, we heaved the trolley onto the line and loaded it up from the pile in the old battery room. We rolled it up to the barrow crossing at RH, carried it onto the up platform, and went back for seconds. By the time everything was stacked up at RH, the second train was due from Ruddington, and we hurried into place, ready to load everything into the mk2 DBSO.
With the train crew anxiously watching the time, we shifted half of the pile into the guard's compartment, before withdrawing to allow the service to continue south to Loughborough. The rest of the material made it into the train on the returning movement, with seconds to spare on the timetable. Some of our number stayed behind to tackle a few odd jobs at HH, and to lock up, while the other two proceeded to Ruddington.
As arranged, there was a reception comittee waiting at the end of RF Platform 1, with hand trolleys to take everything to the appropriate corners of the site. Some to the metal skip, some to the S&T stores, and so forth. The door now awaits the delicate application of brute force to straighten it out, and put its hinges back in line.
With that out of the way, there is now a little more space (literally and figuratively) to approach the next parts of the project, including work on the doors and windows.
We are still looking for someone experienced in woodwork who might be interested in volunteering. If you can help with that, or anything else, please do get in contact!
