NYMR processes donated track

THE North Yorkshire Moors Railway’s permanent way staff and volunteers have spent recent months processing track donated by Network Rail from the two-mile relay at Danby on the Esk Valley line, with the final deliveries from the site arriving from late October to early November.

Although little of it was of any further use on the NYMR, its scrap value represented a considerable boost to the railway’s income at a difficult time.

As the dismantling and stripping progressed, a skip full of cast-iron chairs weighing around 16 tons was dispatched once a week, around 120 tons in total, and around 1750 wooden sleepers had been sold and dispatched from New Bridge Yard, with the remainder stacked and waiting prospective buyers. In addition, around 285 tons of rail from Danby were sent for scrap, supplemented by an additional two loads of scrap rail recovered from other relaying sites on the NYMR.

One recipient of wooden sleepers, complete with cast iron chairs still in situ, has been the nearby Yorkshire Wolds Railway, which took 100 of these to progress its running line extension at its Fimber base. That railway has now launched an appeal to fund the acquisition of rail and fishplates.

The activity at New Bridge has not been entirely one way as return loads of concrete sleepers have arrived taking the place of the scrap rail, while 23 lengths of new flat-bottomed rail have also arrived from British Steel and are intended for use in the new carriage stable at Pickering.