Soon after we arrived at Ruddington, news came in that one of the locomotives on the Santa Special had failed, only moments before departure! While contingency plans swung into effect, we wanted to stay on hand, just in case a few extra bodies were needed for emergency repairs.
That's our excuse, anyway! The freezing, bone-chilling fog, providing an eerily beautiful setting for steam traction, was not an inviting prospect for work at Hotchley Hill, where there is no heating, and no glass in the windows! (We've a plan to do something about that...)
Instead, we made ourselves useful at Ruddington, with further preparation of the door for the north side of the signalbox, and in particular, the hinges. These had been quite mangled by vandals unknown, and so it took a few hours to carefully bend and hammer them back into true shape.
We also made some repairs to the train dispatch plunger on platform 1, dug a few more signal heads out of storage, and applied some thought to the routing of ducting on platform 2.
To pad out the photos this week, a view of the last train of the day entering Ruddington Fields, and later a close-up in the shed. Note the engine-release points for platform two, rapidly nearing completion.
