With the Gala now behind us, work has now re-started in earnest on the Museum foundations. Contractors have been hard at work digging out trenches around the piles which were inserted some time ago. The next step is to insert re-inforcing mesh cages and pour a lot of concrete to form the ground beams. From these beams, the walls of the museum building will rise. Sounds simple when you read it quickly, but this is very expensive work, and given the current state of funding, work will stop at the ground beam stage pending another injection of cash. We hope you all got the pictures of the field railway in September - because the connection to the main system has now been replaced by a very large hole. The site has been exposing some of the fascinating wealth of industrial archaeology, with the top of a drift mine being exposed, and the foundations of some mine building coming to light.Meanwhile, the passenger train fond an unexpected use moving a display concrete pipe from the Heritage Centre to storage in Aurora North. Based on the long-standing tradition of management by typographical error, the Popemobile made a dignified transit of the railway, and the pipe is now ensconced in its new home. It's steam trains next weekend - the Joffre will be unleashed - because Stanhope will be watching the rain in North Wales. Get in touch here.
