Thompson Park Miniature Railway, Burnley, Lancashire UK.

April 2025 Newsletter.

By Bret Harrison, Track Maintenance Department,

Welcome once again to our regular monthly newsletter where we try to let our readers know about our activities during the month.

April signifies the start of our running season at Easter, but this year brought a slight change in our starting as this year it was a late Easter, and we did in fact start a little earlier. This time of year presents us with a heavy running period as we run the whole of Easter, the following Wednesday as it is school holidays and then we run into a Bank holiday early May as well as our normal weekend running so this puts a lot of pressure on volunteer staff and indeed our fleet. We have little opportunity for carrying out maintenance but then eventually when the period of intensive running passes we do have an opportunity to screw a few things back together and to take a breather ourselves.

Some passengers have not realised that we are all volunteers enjoying our hobby and interest and sharing it with the public and so to clarify there are no paid people in our Society. and all fares generated are ploughed straight back into the railway to fund running costs and to further improve the railway.

One small thing that we did manage to complete was to fit a new recoil mechanism in our wacker plate machine. This machine is very handy when we are doing a track relay as it is used to compact the base ballast we must lay before relaying the track on top, it enables us to get a level base.

A bigger job to which I alluded to in the last newsletter was for us to carry out a major garden rebuild in the area where the outer loop almost meets the inner loop near to our shed area. If you recall, we found that the rabbits were eating every plant we introduced and we decided to take some action to counteract this, so a complete change was planned. We have some large tubs on the station and also at the shed area and the rabbits do not attack them possibly because they are so tall and so we decided to go down this route so we purchased some half barrels and then modified the area to accommodate them.They have been replanted with evergreen plants and annual plants and we will see how that goes. We were left with a soil area from the original garden and I fired some grass seed on there only to see a raft of pigeons busily pecking away at the seeds as I drove a service train past, A blast on the horn shifted them but some seeds clearly remained as we can see tiny grass shoots appearing. The two smaller tubs had to be smaller as we needed to be aware of the loading gauge as trains pass. Hope these survive the rabbit attack.

A major refurbishment of our 2 colour light signal posts has just been completed. The old signal lights were filament bulbs and not too clearly seen especially when the sun is shining but they have been replaced with very bright LED lamps, Heavy duty changeover switches have been fitted and the whole system is now much more robust. We do have plans for an LED theatre matrix to indicate to the driver which platform road has been selected for him/her to enter and this matrix will replace the 3 light indicators presently employed. This system is a big improvement, and we are very pleased with it.

I was aware that there may not be too much news available this month due to the heavy running and so with the help of the locomotive department who provided the information I decided to include a brief history and description of our fleet in sections starting with the 3 steam engines which provide the main steam motive power

Sarah is privately owned by a member and regularly works, she is a Romulus design by Roger Marsh and belongs to the original batch built by Geoff Aughton in 1990. We believe her to be number.3 in the Works build. She is an 0-4-0 fitted with Hackworth valve gear, She spent her early days in the Cyprus sunshine working a railway in Aya Napa and in 2006 she was sold to one of our members and came to England to work on our railway in a container which also contained our Union Pacific GP 40 no. 6659.and a quantity of flat bottom rail. She was subsequently sold to her present owner and in 2014 she was subject to a major rebuild and was fitted with a steel boiler with copper flue tubes. She is fitted with a hand brake acting on the back axle and is fitted with a compressor in her tender to provide air braking for our coaches. She continues to provide reliable and regular service.

Fagan ( soon to be renamed and re liveried ?) is a Society owned locomotive acquired in Nov. ’23. This 0-4-0 loco is also a modified Romulus design with Baker valve gear, A modified copper boiler with superheated flues is fitted with steam braking on all 4 wheels and a handbrake on all 4 wheels. A compressor is fitted in the tender to provide air braking for the train behind. This loco has proven to be a reliable performer also.

Red Dragon built in 2010 is a privately owned locomotive by a member. He/She? Are Dragons male or Female? carefully goes here!!! is no.13 in an original batch built by Station Road Steam and fitted with Walschaerts valve gear and has a steel marine boiler with copper tubes and a hand brake on the back axle. A compressor in the tender provides air for the train braking system. The loco is also fitted for vacuum braking; Red Dragon has been on our railway for 2 years now.

All 3 steam locomotives work regularly on the railway and have proved themselves very reliable workhorses. Next month I will attempt a description of our petrol-powered locomotives

So hopefully not too boring.   Our popular little railway runs for the public throughout the summer on Weekends, Wednesdays in the school holidays and on Bank Holidays from noon till 4 pm with the last train departing at 15.50. Please come and enjoy our Railway and say hello!    You never know you may be persuaded to join us as a member!!!!