The wind was howling all night whistling up the steep red brick-tiled roof. The shore was being battered by high waves blowing in off the North Sea. I had to hang onto my "Cat" hat as I made my way down Cliff Road and over to the library to print off some sheets for my last trip to Letheringsett tomorrow (maybe!). Notwithstanding all of this wind, the sun was trying to peek out from amongst these dark clouds.
Coming in for the 10:30 train was J15 0-6-0 #65462, ex Great Eastern Railway #564, ex London & North Eastern Railway #5462 before the days of British Rail and built before the start of World War I in 1914 at their Stratford (London) Works. This loco is the pride and joy of the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway Society which is the largest shareholder in the operating railway known as the North Norfolk Railway Plc.
Over on the siding snuggling up against the string of dining cars was the Sheringham switcher #D2063.
I hopped on board the train and got off at Weybourne. Today would be my last day in the shops. Nigel and I had started drilling some 63/64" holes in the buffer beams to attach the buffers to the Wisbech & Upwell Carriage #7 leaving 8 holes to be drilled at the "Sheringham end" of the car. I thought I would try to finish off these holes before the end of the day using the magnet drill. This is a miniature drill-press-like drill that has an electro-magnet in the base which allows the drill press to be "clamped" to any part of a flat piece of steel - vertical, horizontal, upside-down, right-side-up. The problem was the exterior part of the buffer beam was a 6"x 18"x 12' long chunk of hardwood and, as you know, won't hold a magnet. So the first step was to clamp a 1"x 6"x 3' length of plate steel to the wooden beam. That part wasn't too bad as I was able to use a step-stool to hold this 50lb chunk of steel in place as I tightened the clamps. With the steel plate in place, I was now ready to align the magnet drill.
Holes had been previously drilled through the wooden beam. I now had to drill holes through the 1" steel plate. This involved cradling the magnet drill in one arm and aligning it with the already-drilled hole. At the same time, I had to reach down to the body of the drill press to press the yellow push-button that activated the magnet. Not exactly an easy task, eh!? Again, the step stool and some blocks of wood helped with the task.
Once the drill was set up, I first had to drill a pilot hole with a 1/2" drill bit through the 1" steel plate and then ream it out to 63/64" with a second drill bit. While it took a bit of time to drill each hole, by the end of the day I had the 8 holes drilled and the wooden buffer pads nicely fitted into place. .
In between holes, I would wander out into the yard to take one last look at things. It's when you look back into the yard and take a look at the shop buildings that you get a good sense of what has been accomplished by a bunch of dedicated volunteers over the past number of years. The NNR boasts a cadre of over 400 volunteers that operate all aspects of the railway - from running the trains to overhauling the locomotives. Naturally when you're running regularly scheduled trains, you need some employees on staff. But even with 55 employees, most of whom are part-timers, the railway is mostly run by volunteers, whether it's the guards (conductors), engine drivers (engineers), and firemen, or whether it's working in the buffets, the gift shops, or the book store. The NNR earned an impressive profit of £187, 310 on revenues of £1.5 million. For a volunteer operation, that's quite impressive!!
At the end of the day, #65462 was on it's last trip down to Sheringham.
Having said my goodbyes to Andre, Phil and the rest of the lads,
I made it back up the hill to Weybourne station to talk to John G and the rest of the crew in the M&GN Society book store about my M&GN golf shirt and to await the await the 4:30 train back to Sheringham.
In the meantime 65462 came steaming back up from Sheringham and into the yard for the evening.
Arriving back at Sheringham, I climbed the 257 metres from the bottom of Cliff Road to the B&B and 36 steps up to my room on the third floor. Then back down Cliff Road to the launderette to do one last load of laundry. Back up the 257 metres from the bottom of Cliff Road to the B&B and 36 steps up to my room. By this time, I figured I deserved a break.
Tomorrow if the weather's good, we'll do one last pilgrimage to Letheringsett.
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