Thompson Park Miniature Railway, Burnley Lancashire UK.

Narrative by Bret Harrison Track Maintenance Dept.

November 2025 Newsletter

Welcome to the Society newsletter for the month of November 2025. This time of year we should be getting on with Winter maintenance but a lack of members attending has meant that the 4 or 5 who do attend are hard pressed to get on with the necessary work especially with the project of the new shed build taking place. We had the trackwork and two turnouts delivered, supplied by one of our members and we have been largely getting this track laid and secured.

This track unfortunately is of a lighter weight and profile than the track we use on the Railway and this has led to difficulties we have had to overcome. The light track is suitable for shed sidings but would not be fitted anywhere else on our Railway. The 2 pictures show the track in two stages on its way to the low level shed. The second picture was taken on the 12th November but we have progressed since then and it now runs into the shed, and we have built 2 buffer stops which have now been installed (well almost).

The intention now is for us to cease further construction on the shed project as the lack of members attending has meant that priorities now mean that we need to get on with preparations for our annual Santa Trains, the event for this is taking place on the weekend of Dec 6/7th.

After this we do need to get on with other maintenance as the summer will be on us before we know it and we have lots to do. The new coach shed is beginning to evolve, the pictures showing the ongoing works from ground prep to track laid now waiting for buffer stops to be added and a final decision of the roof construction but a possible sedum green roof to blend in with the park surroundings is a possibility.

We have taken delivery of 10.4 tonnes of ballast as our stocks were getting low and we have also taken delivery of enough 3×2 solid plastic 2.5 metre lengths to make 500 plastic sleepers. We still have some timber sleepers in stock, and these will be used up before we move on to the plastic ones. Moving onto plastic is a trend happening on several railways right now and the advantages are longevity and ruggedness and we feel that advancing our Railway in this direction is desirable however it is a very long term policy before we have re-laid all 7000 or so sleepers in the Main Line so we will just progress this policy on a spot changing basis.

As alluded to earlier we look forward to our Santa trains running and hopefully the weather will be kind to enable both us and our passengers particularly the children to enjoy the event as part of the build up to Christmas.

It would have been nice to report further work carried out but that has not been possible, hopefully we will be more on course as normal in the next newsletter, so it just remains for us to say have a happy Christmas and New Year to everyone.