SINGLE LINES

■ THE extensive overhaul of Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway’s Fairbourne-built 2-6-2 No. 24, which went to John Fowler Engineering in Bouth, Cumbria, in January 2022, continues to progress. Work recently completed includes a boiler hydraulic test, fitting a new ashpan, shotblasting of the tender bogie frames, fitting new tender bogie wheelsets and bearings, and work on the cab and frame mountings.

■ THE Vale of Rheidol Railway is restoring carriage No. 16, which has never run in the preservation era. The underframe has been rebuilt and the body will replicate a 1920s VoR wooden-bodied compartment coach.

■ LEIGHTON Buzzard Railway has constructed a new welfare van for its permanent way team, which includes a partitioned Portaloo base unit. Based on an older vehicle which utilises a Motor Rail Simplex chassis, the van has been designated as ‘Motel’, i.e. Mobile Toilet ExLocomotive!

■ FOLLOWING overhaul, the Teifi Valley Railway (TVR) hopes its Hunslet 0-4-0ST Alan George will return to operation by the coming summer. The overhaul is being undertaken for the railway off-site. The TVR has been without steam since Alan George’s last boiler certificate expired at the end of November 2017.

■ THE team aiming to build a replica Hampton & Kempton Waterworks Railway (H&KWR) Kerr Stuart 0-4-2T has had castings made for the four driving axle boxes which are now away for machining. The ambition is to marry them up with finished wheelsets later this year. The project is in its early stages, although the 87 drawings required to build the loco have been purchased from the Statfold Barn Railway. The original H&KWR locos were named Hampton, Kempton and Sunbury, the respective works numbers being 2366, 2367 and 2368.