Ecclesbourne Valley Railway

Yes, £10K received three days ago according to the Go Fund Me page, bringing the total past the £30K target.

Link:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/operation-duffield

 

Operation Duffield is going well. The dranage ditch is now full length, about 3/4 of the pipes have been laid and are being carefully graded in pea gravel. Thanks to the succes of the appeal we can order more materials as needed; we have invested in plant when we have had the chance to do so, and have a mini diger to make the trench, a road/rail excavator to load the spoil, and wagons to get it away.

This weekend will be the "Twin peaks" Gala, jointly with our friends over the hill at Peak Rail.There are two vintage buses to convey visitors between the two and it looks to be a good weekend ahead.

 

Good to see the line getting some (presumably) valuable publicity out of Operation Duffield by appearing in a fairly long segment on the BBC local news (East Midlands Today) a couple of days ago.

 

Having visited for the excellent Twin Peaks Diesel Gala. I noticed a lot of the DMU stock stored in Wirksworth yard, is or are there any plans to start using them once again?

 

55034 and Derby Lightweight trailer are operational .
119 I believe requires a repaint .55006 has had bodywork repairs and repaint but requires an air leak repairing and exam to return to traffic .It’s currently outside the shed awaiting completion of the trackwork around the new pit ,to enable it to be moved .
The Derby lightweight power car is in the shed on stands undergoing a thorough restoration.
The various 101s etc are stored awaiting bodywork etc repairs ..

 

Operation Duffield continues to make good progress. As of last Saturday, 400 yards of drainage trench had been excavated. The top 100 yards is relatively shallow and does not require pipes. Roughly 180 yards of large diameter pipe had been laid and levelled, and much of it had been buried in pea gravel. About 60 yards of the new down side trackbed had been cleaned off, which means scraping off the soil and leaf mould to get down to the engineered surface left by the Midland Railway over 150 years ago. The PW team will be emptying the muck wagons this week and we hope to have received a fresh delivery of pipes. Further down the line the work becomes simpler - most of the muck will go to fill in the drainage trench, which gets much deeper.

We are on track to re-open to Duffield in June, touch wood.

 

Thanks for the update!

 

Operation Duffield continues to make good progress. The pipes have been laid for the full length of the drain, levelled in pea gravel and buried. The full length of the trackbed has been cleaned off ready for surveying and final levelling, before laying out the geotechnical membrane which is on site. The P.W, dept had possession of the line south of Shottle on Sunday and used it for various works including loading ballast hoppers at Hazelwood for the next phase of the works. One item on our wish list is to create a P.W. siding there.

With the service cut back to Shottle, most Sunday trains were operated by The Duke alone without a diesel on the other end, which the locomotive clearly preferred.

During the week a very smart open wagon arrived from Toton, no doubt this will be going down the line to assist shortly.

The latest project to go into the works is the LMSCA third open which is now complete internally, it is now lifted off its wheels for bogie examination and overhaul.

 

We are extremely grateful to all those who contributed to the appeal, this finance has enabled the work to make progress as planned. There will still be a lot of detailed work to do and the "Operation Duffield" appeal is still open.

The track has now been slewed on to the new ballast bed, the slew took four days last week, in places the rails and sleepers had to be moved ten feet sideways. A pair of closure rails will be required to bridge the gap this created. When the track was severed and the slew began, at one point the left hand rail before the cut was aligned with the right hand rail after it. A photograph of this has appeared on the internet as evidence of HS2 progress.

The plan is to fit the closures this week, and deliver ballast to site in hopper wagons ready for the visit of a hired ballast tamper to consolidate the ballast next week. Today, Wednesday, the closure rails were were on site and being trimmed to length, and a class 14 diesel was shunting ballast hoppers for loading at Duffield Holloway Lane. Meanwhile Anton Shone and other Duffield volunteers have been refurbishing the station ready for the resumption of services. For the time being, we appear to be on track to re-open to Duffield for the Forties Weekend, 15th/16th June.

 

There is a photograph on our facebook site today of a class 73 on a train of hoppers leaving Duffield Station, no doubt having run round there. The closre rails are therefore in. The tamper arrives on Tuesday.

 

Tamping is now complete and the target date for re-opening to Duffield is Friday 14th June.

 

Out of interest (and sorry if I've missed this), is it intended to restore the original alignment once the slip is fully addressed? It would seem a shame to write off a potential double-track formation otherwise, even if you will probably never use it as that.

 

An update from Neil Ferguson:

 

You’ve managed to articulate a question I couldn’t quite manage to word myself, so consider it seconded!

 

I very much doubt if the original alignment will be restored in the forseeable future. The slip is wet clay, and when fresh it was too weak to walk on, hence the block wall. I'm not sure what it is like now, but there is no economic advantage in a double track here, at one end of the line and I am reminded of the slip on the IoWSR at Wooton which slipped decades ago. As far as we can tell, this side of the formation had never had track on it since it was built.

 

"The Duke" took a test train to Duffield today; the deviation works passed inspection so the line is open right through to Duffield Station once again. Services resume tomorrow at the start of our 1940's event.

 

See above for our VIP weekend guest standing in the car park.

 

The drama of the Class 14 Weekend is now behind us and steam services are back to normal with The Duke in charge. We ran an extra early morning diesel unit working on 3rd August to bring shoppers up to the monthly farmers and crafts market, which attracted a significant number of passengers, we plan to repeat this on future market days, which are the first Saturday in the month.

If you are thinking of coming up this weekend, please note that there is an event in Wirksworth itself, "Antiques In The Street" which attracts sellers and buyers from far and wide - and may appeal to any of your companions who are not completely interested in trains.

Meanwhile, down the yard the trackwork on the new ashpit is complete following several days work fixing the chair bolts with epoxy resin and tightening the nuts. The approach track needs a little more ballast before it can be brought into use, for the time being it must be the cleanest ashpit in the country.

 

Is The Duke likely to be running all steam services this summer?

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