Exercise Turnout 20 is now in progress, with work due to take place at Harmby, Wensley and Swale Bridge amongst other locations. The Harmby portion is to relay 500 yards of track with flat bottom rail on concrete sleepers, and to achieve that we needed a source of good second hand flat bottom rail. This was obtained from Network Rail as redundant rail from a relaying of part of the East Coast Main Line. Rail considered life expired for 125 mph running is more than adequate for many years of further use at 25 mph !

Early in the morning of 28th September Class 56 56094 ran from Doncaster Decoy yard to Northallertom Castle Hills with two wagons of rail for the Harmby relay project. It ran round its train and then ran to Constable Burton loop, where it again ran around the train, and the Shark ballast plough was added to the front to permit the train to propel to Leyburn. The Army then used thier heavy lifting equipment to unload the rails into the engineering compound at the east end of Leyburn station, before the train returned to Castle Hills, hopefully leaving the Shark with us, and back onto the main line.

Prior to this train being able to run, we had to re-certify our train crew, signallers and crossing keepers, so a big thank you to all the staff involved in getting us in a position to allow this work to take place.

All of this work is to enable the railway to be in a position to re-open with Polar in Novermber, and is not cheap, so if you can, please donate to our appeal below.

Delivery of rail for Harmby

Wensley Crossing

The dig out of the crossing begins.