Railway Adam

26/10/2026

Signalled the End of Season Gala at the Colne Valley Railway yesterday. The Branch Line Society paid a visit to the railway, barely room for the guard in the brake van!

A fantastic day on the ex-Cressing 1891 McKenzie & Holland frame

3 trains, Nunnery switched in. A movement passed my box about every 3 and a half minutes from 10:45 until 4pm. Shunts either side.

Coupling, uncoupling, double heading, top and tailing, brake van, loco assisting in rear, permissive workings, train unusually long time in section, 1 stop and examine.

Even a flag used to start the day.

Class 03s 2041 and 2184 and Ruston 88ds 887.

Fantastic day in the box and everyone enjoyed themselves.

22/10/2026

It is unusual. We did a shunt.

11/10/2026

I signal the HST, cook on the HST, help fix the HST, weld the HST.

A small moment in history captured with the people I've met through the shared admiration of a portable 3 phase generator.

One of our Powercars has a quite important anniversary today (11/10/26) as from records it did its first ever passenger service Fifty years ago today. Here’s some of the team from 125 Heritage with it at the end of last weekends running day.

10/10/2026

Have been busy over the summer working on various things.

- help painting 08706
- signalling
- HST stuff

Been a busy summer!

04/08/2026

New GBR livery seen at Colchester today.

27/07/2026

Last year for the railway's Christmas display, I made an S&T-themed light display, and I'm going to do the same thing again this year. Video here of what I did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmtxW-s9waM

One of the issues I had is bulbs; the bulbs designed to go in lamps are commonly SL35 bulbs, which have double filaments. This allows for detection to occur when the first filament fails, and then S&T teams can replace the failed bulb.

The bulbs are about 25-30 quid each; when you need 20 of them, that's a lot of money! So I designed and 3D printed a bulb translator, an SL35 socket on the outside, with a bulb holder for 12V car side light bulbs on the inside. The pictures show me test fitting it at the weekend on various lamps.

The geometry is slightly out (too high), but now it means I can confidently secure and standardise the bulbs.

My next plan is to make some PCBs and have localised relays and control inside the lamp. By making it modular, I can just keep adding lamps without any major issue.

More soon!

(PS, should be obvious, but these are not actual rail signals used next to tracks)

23/07/2026

Hedingham up main starter. The shunt authorises movements into Ashpit siding.

16/07/2026

A quick couple of hours sanding layers of paint, green, blue and EWS.

13/07/2026

Will get straight to the point.

This weekend a small team, including myself, worked to install a point in Newmans. This will lead to the future CVR yard and allow for some much needed storage capacity.

Pic is about 75% through the works.

It’s a reclaimed LT set.

07/07/2026

Spent the evening in the sun preparing an 08 for repaint.