Rolling Stones

Good to see the delivery of spent ballast start yesterday. A huge train from Network Rail arrived, with a large Class 66 loco at each end, and dumped a few hundred tons of stones at the Norton site. The stones have come from track renewal works elsewhere on the main line, the train is a very long purpose-built machine that picks up spent ballast and replaces with fresh in one pass. Well almost like that. The Norton site is of course the WSR Association land in the area between the Minehead branch and the main line. It currently a construction site, with the ballast being used to help built the formation of two curving lines (west and east) that, with re-use of the old Barnstaple trackbed to the south, will complete a triangle of railway. This will be used to turn steam locomotives so they always run chimney-first, and also passenger stock which suffers badly on the side facing the sea at Minehead. Watch developments on www.wsr.org.uk