Thompson Park Miniature Railway, Burnley, Lancashire, UK

October 2024 Newsletter.

                                          Narrative by Bret Harrison, Track Maintenance Dept.

                                          Pictures by Bret and Richard Walker, Society Chairman.

     Doesn’t seem a month since I wrote the September newsletter but sure enough it is and there has been lots of activity by the dedicated members who turn up to carry out the necessary maintenance tasks and to further the railway by working on projects that enhance it.

     We received a request from the Narrow Gauge Railway Society for their members to visit the Railway to enjoy the facilities. This Society as the name suggests visit various narrow gauge railways across the Country. We were delighted to receive them on Oct 9th, and they did have a good day. We broke out several trains for them to ride and enjoy and provided them with a buffet lunch. Since the visit we have had emails from the members saying how they enjoyed the visit. 

    On the same day we had a visit from our President John Pickles. John acquired a US outline switcher (shunter) locomotive powered by a 16HP. American Briggs and Stratton V twin engine but before he was able to use it his health situation meant he had to move into a Care Home where he now lives. We knew he was coming and so we prepared his locomotive for him to drive. It was definitely worth this small effort as his face as he drove it round was a picture and made it all worthwhile. I am sure the visit did him more good than anything else and we hope he can pay another visit soon.

Another major development was that an agreement has been made with Heritage Locomotive Painting for Union Pacific 6659 locomotive to be repainted into a new livery as I have alluded to before professionally carried out by this specialist company.  To this end We have removed all the body sections into their constituent 3 parts, and these will be collected later this month.  Meanwhile this gives us the opportunity to carry out a full refurbishment of the solebars and chassis. The picture shows the chassis with the new Honda engine we already had fitted into the loco a short while ago removed and the bogies will follow suit allowing the rest of the frames to be degreased, cleaned and repainted. Once the bogies have been cleaned and serviced and the locomotive rewired and reassembled, she should be as good as new and ready to go for another twenty years. What livery is she being painted into????    Not telling!!!!    watch this space!!!!

    Will sister locomotive 6602 get the same treatment?   More than likely next winter will be her turn and then these 2 stalwarts will both be like new as they deserve to be. They are the reliable workhorses of the railway, and their refurbishment is long overdue

It has also been the turn of the coaching fleet to receive a winter refurbishment. A complete repaint for them all is ongoing but retaining our carmine and cream colours however two of our coaches last season have carried a blue livery and these are being repainted into standard livery as the pictures show. Now this led to a bout of moaning from our Treasurer who was not happy that they were being changed from blue to a red colour and he was involved with this work. His gripe was that it wasn’t fit for an Everton Supporter to be changing the blue into a Liverpool FC.colour. Personally, I think the way they are in the pic is fine by me as a Burnley supporter, Claret and Blue seems just fine. Strengthening angle iron has been fitted to the ends of the coaches as people tend to grab the ends.

 Fagan, our club owned steam engine has been winterised and the new firegrate our loco dept. made and which I alluded to in the Sep. Newsletter has now been fitted and working well.  Sarah, Brians privately owned steam engine has been receiving attention also. Her tender interior has been patiently scraped and stripped of all the protection in there and is now ready for her new protective coating painting on. I understand she needs some work on her reverser and other odds and ends carrying out. To be fair all our steam engines have been hard at work all summer and thoroughly deserve all the attention they are getting.

 Trackwork has been a bit slow this month as holidays for 2 of the guys have been ongoing and I have been involved with moving on the build of the new ballast wagon we have been constructing. However, as I mentioned in the Sep. newsletter some work has been carried out on the inner mainline from the station throat to the return loop from the station, The 20 year old sleepers here are in remarkable condition still but the securing screws have all been replaced, the sleepers oiled, and all the fishplates will be changed. We only had to change a minimum of sleepers which were past their best.

John has been ploughing a lone furrow making his way around the mainline trimming the grass edges back and doing a sterling job. It makes all the difference to the appearance of the alignment.

 I mentioned the ballast wagon we are building for the Works train. We make good progress with it, but it is not quite finished and hopefully it will feature in the November newsletter. The same applies to the bracket semaphore signal we are making, Pressure of business don’t you know!!

 When the ballast wagon goes into service it will now have some ballast to carry as at long last, we have finally, after a false dawn had 10 tonnes of it successfully delivered. The first delivery was incorrect and not accepted and Mike did a sterling job in sorting out the mess and getting the correct size of ballast delivered.

    So, maintenance continues, it would be nice to see more members helping but as always, we press on. Our next running will be our Santa specials in mid-December, so we hope to see our regular riders and new passengers then.