With Christmas out of the way, many people feel it’s a good time to have a shed clear out. A time to start the new year afresh. Well, we don’t do anything on a small scale like that. In order to tidy up our locomotive shed, volunteers were needed en masse.
The Maghera Shed is our main locomotive facility. It has been out of general use since the storms associated with the 2023 flooding. It is part of a protracted and complex project has been underway to agree on the repair process with the council. We have now finally completed the tender process and are in the process of choosing the roofing contractor – watch this space.
In advance of the work starting, we have had the mother of all shed clear outs. Our volunteers carried this out over the past couple of weeks.
The flood waters tossed around tools, wood and parts everywhere. Some of the wood was starting to turn to compost inside its containers. It was a complete mess.
Incredible progress by a small team of volunteers
With access to the shed under carefully controlled restrictions, fully risk assessed and with appropriate PPE, a small team have made incredible progress. They have removed large amounts of waste and damaged materials. Other volunteers have been helping outside, moving materials stored around the shed.
All this work will enable a clear and safe workspace for the work platforms and scaffolding. This will be needed for the roof replacement. We then have the small matter of where to put two O&K steam locos and a G class diesel!
Would you like to help out with our efforts to restore steam train operations on our railway? We would love to hear from you, check out our volunteering page today.
