WDMES Picture Gallery 13

On September 12th, 2008, the track gang arrived for a day's tea drinking to be greeted by a terrible sight! Our beloved track, the fruit of many man-years of effort had been got at!

Henry arrived first and was puzzled to see a bundle of aluminium rail propped up against the track.

He then walked up the track to see what had been going on.

To his horror, he saw that a large chunk of track had been ripped up. All four rails had been removed from 10 beams, around 60 feet, and two rails from a further 8 beams - 48 feet.

All four rails removed.

Two rails removed.

The criminals obviously knew what they were after and had brought tools to facilitate the removal. The thieves must have been disturbed and dropped these tools at the track. A bag of containing more tools was subsequently discovered in a hedgerow, with the bits for the screwdriver handle in it, and a roll of the same parcel tape that had been used to bind the removed rail into the bundle that Henry found.

We subsequently learnt that a suspicious vehicle had been seen in the village the previous day, and had been reported to the police, complete with description and registration number. Whether or not this had anything to do with the theft remains a matter of conjecture, of course. It seems likely that the culprits were in action that morning and were disturbed by the arrival of Henry, fled the scene and abandoned everything. It was later reported to us that more rail had been found under a hedge, somewhat mangled.

The club hut had been broken into, but nothing appears to have been taken. This is despite 4 packs of aluminium rail being stored under the table! This was awaiting the construction of our passing loop project which we had hoped to start this winter. At least it means that any rail that has been damaged beyond recovery can be quickly replaced.

Our priority is now restoration of the track - there are only a few running days left this season and it looks likely that we may not have a track until next season now. The proposal is to make the next few Sundays working days, and along with the regular Wednesday working party we hope to restore the track in time for one last running day before the winter closes in.