Our new Mid Week Team start at Coldham

Our new mid week group started today, meeting initially every 2nd Wednesday, plus maybe a few more in between. We started where our Sunday Team left off at Coldham. First up was to clear the level crossing gate the March side of brambles and grass and the fencing to the sides.

This is how the fence looked back in the Summer of 2009, the brambles a very unwelcome sight coming over the fencing, and through the gates. Very unkept and shows the railway up in a particuarly bad way.

As you can see it is very wet at Coldham, but the Brambles and trees have been delt with. Over the next few months, we will be looking to Refurbish this area, sanding down and repainting the fencing and gates, replacing the Red Targets on the gate and making it look like a Railway again. Much work is needed to be done here, but we hope to get it looking as good as Waldersea this year and smarten it up.

Having finished with the gate area for now, we moved onto the slog that was clearing a walkway through the Brambles north of the Level Crossing. This is how it looked when we started on Sunday

and after much cutting and hacking back the brambles between our team, it finished looking like this

Ok, so the grass in the four foot makes it look bad, but there has been a huge amount of Brambles cleared. We have only concentrated on the track area for the time being because we are clearing a path for the Sponsored Walk on Sunday, March 7th. We started at the crossing itself and where soon making good headway through the Brambles. Below our Chairman rakes some of the cut brambles away.

Not long after this, we needed a break. We got discussing the old gents toilet block which is still there, burried among trees and brambles south of Coldham station. So, we decided to pay a visit to it. Inside we found a cut down tree and some brambles which were dumped in there sometime ago. Nothing else.

Now, we found on the office computer this photo, taken back in 2005/6.

and also this photo of Coldham before Closure. The gents toilet block can clearly be seen on the left hand side of the photo.

Anyway, enough of this larking about in the gents toilets! People will talk. Onward and northward, we got back to work and as we got near the end the progress looked good. Shame about the orangemen.

The group is again working this Sunday at Coldham from 9.30am onwards. Work continues to complete the vegetation clearence work at Coldham. If you want to get involved, please get in touch. The more people we have volunteering, the quicker a lot of work can get done. Details of membership can be found here, and you can E-mail us at bramley_line@yahoo.com to get involved.

One last note of the day, Our chairman tries to recruit a young horse to the track clearing team, in the hope she will eat all the grass on the line.