The Long Bustard Narrow Gauge Railway, Part2.

Continued...

Chapter Four.
Up the River Without a Paddle.

Martin arrived at the Town Council Chambers at about 8pm to see the Town Mayor. He had some harsh questions to put to him and as this was a private meeting there would be no media present. He parked his car on a slot that had a white painted sign saying ‘Staff Only’, there did not appear to be anywhere else to put his car anyway so there could be no harm in it. As only he and the Mayor and perhaps another odd political representative of the town would be there it should be OK. Alas, he had not bargained for the recent contract the very same Town Council had taken out with a local recovery firm.

Upon entering the chamber itself he found the Mayor, and the councillor responsible for the ‘ward’ the LBLR had its station in, present.

“ Martin, nice to see you. Please do come in and sit over here by us. We have a lot to discuss indeed. You know Councillor Smith I assume?” crooned the Mayor, well aware that Martin as the LBLR General Manager would not be best pleased with that weeks LBO front page article.

“Thank you Mr. Mayor, I’m not so sure I want to call you Allan anymore; possibly Judas would be a better name now,” snapped Martin seating himself on one of the high backed polished wooden chairs facing the two. When people sit opposite each other they tend to be on opposing sides; when alongside each other on the same side. Around them were large pictures, some were photos, others paintings, of the town’s Mayors over a very long number of years hanging in posh guilt frames on the oak panelled walls. On the long polished teak table in front of them were jugs of water and glasses to each chair and a large green blotter pad surrounded in richly engraved green leather. A picture of the little Formica café table at the railway shot through Martin’s mind’s eye as a comparison. Local small talk filled the first quarter of an hour, then Martin decided it was time to name names.

“ Why has the Town Council sided with this development company? They are a fly-by-night bunch like all developers. Once they have their money once the houses are sold, you will not see them for dust, just look at the last similar so-called development. The County Council has refused point-blank to accept the roads because they are not finished, half the drains are not even connected up. What is your game Allan?” Martin demanded.

“Well, we had a visit as you know from GGD. Their Big Boss came to see us and made lots of promises, one of which was to build community rooms for the huge housing estate they intend to build on the quarry next to your station,” the Mayor told Martin.

The local councillor told Martin, “Alas I was not present at this meeting or I would have sounded the alarm to my colleagues about such inducements. This is a small market town with typically small market town councillors and minds. They permitted themselves to be swayed by the clever chap from GGD. Of course not one of the things that were offered are in black and white or on paper and I am certain many of the councillors did not put two and two together as some of them knew well you had received a notice to quit the land GGD need.”

“You have accepted an offer of new community rooms and a promise of a new railway station? Surely someone there must have thought it odd that a company like GGD would offer to build a new railway station on land they had just thrown us off? If they do get rid of us the land that that will free up will permit about an extra two hundred houses to be built. At about £200,000 each that is a mere forty million pounds they will make and that is just on the station, shed and sidings land never mind the huge pit itself. When you work out they are to build over two thousand houses in all, we are talking huge cash figures,” Martin argued.

The Mayor added,” Well, they have applied to the County Council for ‘brown-field planning permission’ and they will undoubtedly get it as the Government wants more homes built. The area does need more housing desperately. They have offered these community rooms and tell us that if within a year they have not built them they will pay a fine towards the eventual cost.”

“How much?” asked Martin.

“£100,000,” replied the Mayor. “Our problem now is how to show we support the railway but at the same time ensure the town gets value for money and a decent housing estate with the supporting infrastructure.”

“That is your problem, I run a railway,” snapped Martin. He could see lots of political manoeuvring coming. Not being a developer Martin did not then know that a mere £100,000 was peanuts and insufficient to build anything let alone a station. Add to that a years inflation and it would just get worse.

The meeting ended with no real cure for the problems of the railway. The solicitors of the railway would have to fight the notice to quit the land. Luckily two of the society members were themselves solicitors and would do much of the work without a fee. Any other way would be impossible as by no means was the LBLR rich. It survived only on its receipts from its tourist passenger traffic and gifts from its members. Being in quite an affluent area with full employment meant very few grants from lotteries came their way. Now with no legal right to occupy the land and no lease, no one was going to give or lend them anything.

Martin walked out to his car and then suddenly stopped at what he saw. There, clamped to his front nearside wheel was a huge triangular yellow wheel clamp, with instruction painted in black on the front face. It read, “ Do not remove this clamp, you have been illegally parked on private land. Removal fee £250. Phone this number for release”. A mobile phone number was given of the local recovery firm K&K Ltd. Martin’s face went red, his brother-in-law ran this firm so it was with high blood pressure and a red face that he whipped out his mobile phone and demanded the instant release of his car.

Forty minutes later Martin was on his way home and the driver of the recovery truck that had attended had one hell of a telling off. His ear was still burning when he arrived back at K&K Ltd offices. There he suggested to his boss that perhaps a list of relative’s car’s registration numbers might possibly help in future?

*********

The next day Martin decided to drive over to see Pete and Mary. Pete was the head Guard as well as an Executive Committee Member and Mary ran the LBLR shop and they lived in Long Bustard. Pete was interested in anything mechanical, so he ran old motorcycles as well as assisting on the Tuesday Team when he could. He was very finicky over his mechanical wonders in his garage and kept them all in good running order. Martin found him in his garage sitting on the floor with lots of bits of a stripped-down motorcycle engine laid out on a sheet about him.

“Hello Martin, come on in. I’ve had to take this ruddy BSA to bits again. It seems to have a rather odd intermittent oil leak. Last Sunday it dumped about a half pint on the car park, but none since. It did this last year and I am going to find out why it leaks if it kills me,” Pete told Martin. In his very oily hands Pete held an oil pump he had just unearthed from the innards of the motorcycles crankcase, looking for all the world like a surgeon in a hospital operating theatre. That is apart from the fact everything around him was covered in black, used oil! “ Mary has gone to the station, she is ‘duty admin’ today and is also expecting some shop deliveries.”

Mary was the shop manager but she was also part of a team who manned the shop. The team of course was shared around lots of the other departments as you would expect; very few active members wore only one hat. She had left just prior to Martin’s arrival so they had missed each other. Martin wanted to bounce some ideas off Pete, to see what Pete thought. They had both been founder members of the Society since being young men back in the 1960s.

Then the phone rang. There was an extension from Pete’s house into his garage for obvious reasons as well as the one that Mary did not like handling an oil soaked handset. Pete picked the garage extension up and listened. He raised his eyebrows and answered.

“What! Martin is here, you had better tell him,” he said frowning and passing the phone to Martin.

Martin listed for a few minutes then said. “Oh my God, what a ruddy mess. Right Mary I’ll be there in a tick.” He told Pete what Mary had told him.

“A smashed up platform, a dozen travellers caravans in the car park, what the hell is going on Martin? Prior to that we get a notice to quit the land, a town council who fail to back us and an attempt to serve a notice on us to be quiet before 8am! Martin, who the hell has got it in for us because someone certainly has? Wait a minute, I am coming with you,” and with that Pete removed his overalls and went in to the kitchen to wash his hands. Martin did not reply, he was deep in his thoughts. As usual Pete left huge black stains on the towel but what are towels for anyway, not that Mary would see it that way.

The bits of BSA motorcycle engine would just have to wait.

It was Thursday and the railway was supposed to be running trains on Sunday, the last day of the summer season. Martin and Pete arrived at the little station, parked their cars and went to look at the damage to the platform. They parked the cars in the approach road as they could not get into the staff car park due to it being full of caravans, most of the towing vehicles were out for the day doing ‘hedge cutting’, ‘tree-trimming’ and ‘rubbish removal’ jobs for ‘cash in hand’ for the locals. Most of this detritus would be fly-tipped in the area but the travellers looked upon it as re-cycling other’s rubbish. The two railway members were more worried about the state of the station before sorting out the illegal campers. Mary came out from the shop having only put half of the day’s deliveries onto the shop’s computerised till, to see what could be done. It was vital that the trains ran as that was the life-blood of the railway’s income.

“Well, what can you two do about this?” asked Mary looking from one to the other.

“ Well, to be honest it is not as bad as I pictured it from your phone call. Only the edges are damaged, and I think if we used quick-drying cement we could tidy up that jagged edge enough to make the platform safe. There would be no overhang, but with a new white warning line it should satisfy our Safety Officer,” Martin said.

“You are the Safety Officer you pratt,” added Pete.

“Yes, I know, but one has to be correct in these matters. Tomorrow, Friday, if we do it in the morning it will be dry by the evening and ready for painting. That should be dry by Sunday?” said Martin looking at Pete for support.

“Yup. If you get Dave to give you a hand as he is at home moping about until he can get a proper job. He has also done building work before and knows how to mix cement,” Pete commented.

“Good, I’ll finish stocking the shop’s shelves. What are you doing about our visitors?” Mary asked Martin.

“John is the Planning Officer, he must know how to move these people on. If he doesn’t then one of the tame solicitors can help him. I think it is all civil action as there is no damage. It is just a simple ‘civil’ trespass I assume,” Martin decided and went off to phone John who he assumed did not yet know of the encampment.

Mary made herself busy in the LBLR’s shop. This was sheer heaven for young children who were interested in trains, which included nearly all the young boys who came and quite a few girls. It was almost a paradise for any adult train buff as well with the very large selection of railway books and DVDs on sale. For children it had the best ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ selection in the area. Mary loved to see the little faces full of wonder of the children as they ran into the shop all excited. The faces of the parents matched in their haste to try to stop their offspring from emptying all the shelves of locos, cars, carriages, sweets, books and trinkets. Like any well-designed selling area one had to go through the shop to get a ticket and back again to go out to the café. The shop was the only real profit making part of the railway that did not entail lots of hard labour and getting very dirty.

Once Martin had sorted out John to chase up the campers he contacted Dave and arranged the following days work to fix the platform. As he left Martin took both tokens with him so he would ‘control’ the whole length of the line the next day. By having the tokens no one else could run any trains and he needed the line to get the platform repair equipment from The Henge the other end. The LBLR had an ‘engineering train’ for such jobs, diesel hauled of course.

********

7am Friday morning saw Martin and Dave well wrapped up in worn warm working clothes, safety boots and high-visibility jackets as they arrived at The Henge workshop end of the line. The Henge Works was where the non-passenger and non-running stock was kept in a large number of very loosely laid sidings. Most of the little two-foot gauge railway lines were spiked to old second-hand, British Rail main-line sleepers that had been cut in half. The 4’8” gauge sleepers made good 2’ gauge ones cheaply being 8ft wide then cut in half. Alas BR stocks had run out years ago and only expensive new ones were used on the actual part of the line where passenger carriages ran. Dave was in the passenger seat of Martin’s car so he got out to open the barrier that controlled the road entrance. Again this was locked with a combination lock for the same reasons that the staff car-park was the other end. Henge Works was out in the countryside and was accessed by road along a pleasant country lane that ran along one side of a shallow valley. On the opposite side of the same valley were Dunston Downs. The railway hugged this lane on its way into town giving a rare sight for the UK, a roadside railway with a nice country view.

Parked in the centre road of the Henge station platform was a 40hp Simplex Diesel loco attached to a rare collection of odd mismatched wagons and vans. This was the LBLR ‘Engineering Train’, used for keeping the line in repair. There was a covered van that acted as a canteen complete with a Calor Gas oven and hob. The rear half of this van was a tool store, full of shovels, levers, sockets, spades, pick axes and the like. Attached to the van were three flat wagons, one had new sleepers on it, another a one tonne bag of sand with a water tank and the last had a 110volt generator and a small concrete mixer both driven by ancient, almost vintage, single cylinder diesel engines; everything you might need to fix a railway. Dave unlocked the tools and undid all the brakes on the wagons whilst Martin started up the diesel loco to warm it up. This required the use of a big starting handle and some muscle. Martin was to drive and Dave to be the Guard; the canteen van had a brake fitted that could be accessed through a rear hatch so it was in the van that Dave would ride. A Guard was required because someone has to flag the many public roads the little railway crossed and in case an extra brake was required if the loco found it could not stop in time. It is a fact that even if you paint a big diesel bright shiny maroon and add two thick yellow lines car drivers still will not see it. Add to that the two very loud air-horns fitted to the cab roof and you soon wonder if some people are blind, deaf and stupid. A few must be because over the years since the railway has existed since 1919 road vehicles have been hit a large number of times. In 1921 a 14 year-old flag boy had been killed by being struck by the loco when he had to dive out of the path of a speeding car who had refused to stop at a level crossing. It was nearly 8am by the time they had checked they had everything they needed and it was now quite light.

Today drivers in their air-conditioned, sound-proofed, heated, well-silenced cars often with their radio or CD player blasting away simply do not think to obey the ‘Give Way’ signs carefully positioned at every road level-crossing. As the LBLR was not a main line railway and did not run every day and had been built on land that was owned by the quarry owners who wanted the railway, no Act of Parliament was required to run it as was very necessary for the rest of the UK’s railway system. The LBLR was a stand-alone system and did not need barriers or flashing lights on level crossings; the Road Traffic Act., Section 22 ‘Give Way’ signs were all that was required by law. Even if you ignore all the above common sense tells you that an eighty tonne train cannot stop as quickly as a one tonne car can and when it hits the car it will make a real mess of things.

So, it will not surprise anyone that after the little diesel train got moving and approached the first of five road level crossings Martin gave a good loud, long blast on the air-horns. This upset quite a few rooks in nearby trees causing them to all take off together squawking like mad and flying in circles, as well as two sheep who had been dozing behind the hedge who tore off across the field. They too took off like Exorcet missiles but ran out off puff after fifty yards to then look back to see what all the noise was all about. Not being railway anoraks they quickly found this boring so began nibbling the grass again instead. The road the engineering train was about to cross was the lane to the local Council Tidy Tip. This ran from a Tee-junction off the lane that ran alongside the railway right into the town. The rules dictated that the normal line running-speed here for the LBLR was just ten miles per hour, but at road crossings this dropped to just two miles per hour. Martin had slowed as he sounded the air-horns and was looking left, right and centre for any approaching cars. Fate has a way of catching you out even when you are alert. Today, just to be different, fate decided to have pensioner, or to be more politically correct, ‘senior citizen’ Mrs. Angela Smith driving her tidy little blue Nissan Micra out of the town along the lane towards the Henge Works. She had her two-year old miniature poodle in the passenger seat who was being taken to the kennels for a wash and trim. Normally the cars that caused problems at this first crossing were those coming down the hill from the Tidy Tip so loco drivers tended to keep watch up this hill. Cars would ignore the ‘Give Way’ signs, fail to notice the train, fail to hear the whistle if a steam loco or the horns if a diesel loco, and stop at the road’s Tee- junction ‘Give Way’ lines instead of the level crossing lines. This left the rear of the car across the railway level crossing but today the impending accident was coming from the town, towards the train on the lane running alongside the railway. With the loco actually across the road and the wagons still crossing behind it, Mrs. Smith put her flashing indicators on to turn left and then turning left ran head-long into the canteen van’s side as it crossed at the rear of the train. As luck would have it she was only travelling at about ten miles per hour but the train was doing two miles per hour across her bows. The Micra just crumpled up as it was dragged sideways and rolled onto its side like a dead donkey.

Dave had watched this all in slow-motion from the van. He had begun to shout at the Micra’s driver as he could see what was going to happen, but all too late. The train had drawn clear of the road by the time it managed to stop and Dave had quickly leapt off. He was right next to the small car so he shoved it hard and rolled it over back onto its wheels. He then opened the driver’s door with difficulty and Mrs. Smith was still strapped in, looking very dazed but unhurt. The poodle was shell shocked and just laid on its back staring, legs in the air, at Dave from the rear seat.

“What happened? Where did you come from?” were the first words uttered by a confused Mrs. Smith.

“Are you alright? Wiggle you fingers and your toes for me,” asked Dave.

By then Martin had arrived and looking at the front end of the Micra judged it to be a write-off. Once they had found the Micra’s driver was OK but only dazed, Martin phoned the police. After speaking to them for a few minutes he folded up his mobile and began to talk to Mrs. Smith.

“ Well, I do not believe it. It seems the police are not interested at all. They classify this as a ‘damage-only’ accident as no one is injured. We just need to exchange names, addresses and insurance details. I told them I was driving a train but that did not faze them at all. Dave, on our side we have to inform the Railway Accident Investigation Board so I’ll phone them now. There is no damage at all to our train just some paint removed from the canteen’s chassis where she rammed it but her car is wrecked.” Martin said and then walked away a little to ring up the RAIB. Luckily one of their inspectors lived in Long Bustard.

Mrs Smith asked Dave, “ Don’t you have red flags or something?”

“I doubt if that would have made any difference my Dear, you ran into the side of the last wagon to cross the road, no red flag would have stopped you. We only flag the main roads.”

Dave bustled about getting Mrs. Smith into the canteen van where it was warm and out of the chilly wind. She for her part was now fully with everything so phoned her insurance company who would arrange recovery of her car. Dave politely reminded her the car could not be moved until the RAIB inspector had seen it. By the time Mrs. Smith had organised herself a lift a big BMW car pulled up and a tall man with a clipboard got out and spoke to Martin.

“Well Martin, we meet again,” said the RAIB Inspector, “ yet another bump on a level crossing. I know you only flag the three main roads but as this lane gets more and more popular you need to think about this one as well. I’ll put that in my recommendations. Good job no one was hurt, did she just not see you?

“No, she most certainly did not see us. She hit the rear van as it crossed the road!” Martin told him and continued to describe his viewpoint of the accident.

The Inspector then got on with his measuring and filling in his forms, which took about a half hour. He then asked Mrs. Smith a few questions and just as he finished her son arrived to collect her. Dave, Martin and the son pushed the bent Micra off the road onto the verge to await its recovery having to almost lift it due to the front wheels both facing inwards. Having finished the inspector then checked over the train and its brakes. Finding it all in order he released it so Martin and Dave could continue to carry out what they had begun hours ago. Mrs. Smith was yet another statistic on railway level-crossing accidents, her insurance company could sort out her car.

“Any witnesses?” asked the Inspector.

“Only two sheep,” replied Martin, “but they didn’t stop to leave any addresses.”

“Right, I’ll be off then. I’ll send you a copy of my report. Is it not amazing that the police do not prosecute such drivers, failing to obey a give way sign would be a start. Probably too busy playing snooker perhaps?” was the Inspector’s passing comment to the two as he drove off.

“By rights,” said Martin to Dave,” the police should have attended and breathalysed us both you know, we were both driving vehicles. Never mind, what the eye does not see the heart cannot grieve over. No one will now check her licence, MoT, insurance, how good her eyesight is or the condition of the car.”

The rest of the three-mile journey was less spectacular, all three main roads were crossed without incident. Once at Town Park railway station Martin put the train into platform one so as to give room for them to work on the smashed edges of the slabs on platform two. They worked away for about two hours mixing cement and putting it along the broken edge. They added a grey powder to the mixture that accelerated the drying and curing of the cement to just six hours depending upon the temperature of the day. The damage had been reported to the local police by phone as a crime but once again they deigned not to attend and as there were no known witnesses, they just issued a crime number. For once the crime desk operator had not told Martin to report it to the British Transport Police. BTP were the national railway police and nothing to do with private narrow gauge railways. Centralisation of police administration had caused lots of similar ‘lack of local knowledge’ problems. By midday the two friends had finished the temporary repairs and were en-route back to the Henge Works with their train, taking careful note to watch out for little blue Nissan Micras being driven by myopic old ladies.

“You can add another thing to that list of problems Pete spoke of to you last night, now we have a railway accident investigation in progress,” Dave commented.

Martin replied, “Yes you can, but I do not think Mrs. Smith is part of any vendetta against us, do you? Still, it is not good publicity for us either, even if it was not our fault. I bet that poodle will wear its seat belt from now on.”

*******

Saturday saw the cleaning up of platform two so it would be safe for visitors and passengers. During the summer the LBLR ran weekends, but other times only Sundays so it was not unusual for some of the shed staff to come in to ‘work’ on the locos and carriages. The two grumpy old gents who had been in on Tuesday had promised to sort out a leaking steam valve in No4’s cab. When the driver operated it the stuffing-gland let steam blast past its seal to almost scald the driver’s hand, hence it required re-stuffing. This sounds a bit rude but meant that extra asbestos-type string would be fed into the gland to permit a tighter grip of it on the operating wheels shaft. The string was not real asbestos as such things are now a banned substance.

“ Hello you old sod,” said one old chap to his mate.

“Well, so you deigned to come in to work then, not quite ready for your box then?” the other teased. “Think you will still be here this coming Tuesday? Be better to check the Obituaries before you get out of bed.”

“Bog off you miserable git,” was the deserved reply.

“Better get this valve sorted out or they will not have a loco for tomorrow,” said the first.

“Why can they not use the black thing over there then?” the other asked pointing at an 0-4-0 steam locomotive , No11.

“ That loco is the reserve true enough, but it is due a boiler wash which you and I are to carry out Tuesday. It is not steaming very well at all,” was the reply.

The two veterans then set about fixing the fault on No4. After about an hour the same young girl who had been assisting them on the Tuesday arrived with her boyfriend.

“ Hi you two, alright if I bring my boyfriend in to see the locos?” she asked a head that popped out of No4s cab when the shed door alarm ‘ping-ponged’. It did this to warn anyone in the shed that someone had entered by breaking a beam across the door opening. In the past there had been cases of thefts of personal property from jackets hung on hooks and similar by sneak thieves.

“Certainly, but warn him there are pits under some locos and lots of trip-hazards. We do not want any insurance claims,” said the head.

The two love birds came in and the lad asked the two engineers fixing No4,” Sally says you two are always arguing, why is that?”

“Well,” said the other head that was now looking out of the back of the cab, “he nicked my girlfriend back in 1939 just as the war started…”

“No I didn’t,” came a voice from inside the cab.

“Oh yes you did,” the head replied looking down into the cab.

“Why does that annoy you all these years later?” asked Sally.

“Well, the rotten sod gave her back to me and I’ve been married to her for the last 55 years. Why did I have to suffer, why did he not keep her?” came the reply, “If he had married her I would be a free man, not under the thumb as I am now. That’s why I hate him.”

“I soon sussed her out mate and dropped her like a hot stone, control freak she was,” the voice in the cab said with a chuckle.

There was a loud metallic clunk followed by the sound of a big heavy steel spanner hitting the footplate floor of the cab.

“Ow! That was my ruddy finger, sod it! Got a plaster anyone?” an annoyed voice asked.

As the two love birds walked off about the shed the lad asked Sally how old the two old chaps were.

“Well into their late seventies is my guess, probably in their early eighties even,” was the amazing reply. “Most of the old boys who work in here are over sixty five and love it. I like it as well because it is real hands-on engineering and really helps my Engineering Degree work. You can see what you are doing and how it works unlike some computer controlled product,” she replied to his question.

Behind them the two old gents were chatting away as they worked.

“I’ve spent my life trying to work out the meaning of life you know,” said one.

“Oh yes, what have you discovered so far then?” was the reply.

“Well, most things seem to have a meaning, and other things might lead you somewhere, but there is one question I just cannot fathom,” he continued.

“Go on, surprise me,” the second asked.

“I like fish and chips. It is my favourite food. But ever since I was a little lad I have wondered just how they get the bits of fish to fit exactly inside the batter so accurately.”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” signed the second, “I can see it’s going to be one of those days.”

*********

Amongst the visitors to the LBLR late that day was Rodney and his friend Tom who had a walk about the station and platform as if they were passengers. They found the mains water cock under a cover in the road outside and when no one was looking they turned it off. They were unnoticed because the station opened out onto the town’s park adjacent to it and it was common for families, parties, dog walkers and joggers to sit on the station platform seats for a rest.

********

Chapter Five.
Light in the Tunnel.

Sunday’s trains went well, not too many passengers alas but everything ran without incident once the DM found out why the toilets would not flush and turned the mains water on again. Nearly everything else went well unless you included the loco crew. Keith was on the footplate again and was getting quite good at getting on and off the footplate onto the ground level at the three roads that required the use of the red flag to try to stop Mr. & Mrs. Average Driver from crashing into the train. To be fair the vast majority of cars stopped before the train even arrived as they could hear it coming and see the steam drifting across the road over the hedge. They stopped to admire a real little steam engine working and for their children to wave at the passengers.

The first train to cross the first main road saw Keith jumping off the footplate facing forward which was not a good idea. It was far safer to step down backwards. Martin was driving again and when he looked up was surprised to see only one red flag displayed being held by the assistant Guard. There was no sign of Keith. As the loco had drawn to a halt to let the two who were flagging off it would stop with its front buffer just before the footpath. This meant the cab further back was actually over the road’s ditch. Keith had jumped into this ditch, which was about three feet further deeper than the road he had intended to land on. It was also full of filthy ditch water. Eventually a rather wet and smelly Keith crawled out onto the road and unfurled his flag to the waiting traffic. The two cars on his side of the train had their occupants in stitches over his act in the ditch. From then on it was called ‘Keith’s Ditch’. There were lots of local LBLR nick- names to various bits along the line, many only understood by the active members. Many had gained their names in similar fashion to Keith’s Ditch.

John had had some success with the solicitors. They had lodged a complaint with the County Court to get the trespassing travellers off railway land. This had not actually cost the railway anything as by law it was the landowner who had to carry out the legal challenge and GGD were the landlords. John walked down into the staff car park to speak to the ‘leader’ of the group. He knocked on the door of the nearest one, which just happened to be that of the original scout. The door opened.

“Good morning Mr. Smith, when do you intend to leave us?” John pointedly asked the burly man who answered.

“Oh, ‘ello, come on in but for God’s sake wipe your shoes. See this black eye? I have to admit that ‘er indoors give it to me. I forgot you see to take mine off the other night and made a mess of ‘er floor,” he told John beckoning him into the caravan.

John stepped up into the large chrome laden trailer and was very surprised to see it was absolutely immaculate inside, everything was laid out neatly and there was a great deal of very fine china about. Sitting the other end of the caravan on a full-width seat around a shining wood-veneer table was the most enormous woman he had ever seen. He wondered to himself how on earth she managed to move about and even get in and out of the door. He sat down where he was bid.

He opened the conversation with, “ Where have you come from then and why pick on Long Bustard?”

It was the lady who answered and who was obviously in charge. Unknown to John she was the matriarchal boss of this traveller group and ran it with an iron hand.

“We travel the whole country and were last in Hertfordshire. We were ejected by a certain town council from a city-centre car-park last week. My useless husband here, who would find being an unemployed itinerant travelling undertaker difficult, by sheer luck noticed your available car park. We will leave once the civil court proceedings are complete,” she turned to glare at her husband who had remained standing. “He has something to tell you as you are here,” she added looking back at Martin.

“Yes I ‘ave. The other day when we arrived, or more correctly that night, I was out on the platform ‘aving a fag when I ‘eard two blokes smashing up your slabs. I thought I would scare ‘em so waited until they were looking at me and then took a flash photo wiv my mobile phone,” the scout informed Martin.

Martin sat there for a few seconds with his mouth open. Then it dawned on him here was a witness to their damaged platform edge. Would he submit the photo to the police as evidence though? Martin thought it well worth trying.

“So you have a picture of the toe-rags who smashed our property eh? Would you be prepared to show it to the police?”

“I might, but the rest of the lads must not find out that I ‘assisted the Rozzers in their hen-quiries,” he told Martin.

“Right, I will organise that right away. Come over to the station building in about twenty minutes please, the lads will just think you are going for a walk.”

With that and all thoughts of removing the illegal visitors out of his mind, Martin went into the stations little General Office to speak to the police. He had the crime number from the day-diary and soon a SOCO, a ‘Scenes of Crime Officer’, a civilian who specialised in evidence gathering, attended in a little unmarked white van. Just as the SOCO arrived the travellers scout walked into the station. Both he and Martin watched with interest as the SOCO downloaded the photo from the mobile phone onto a lap-top computer and then printed off a copy. The SOCO, who had been doing his job in the town for nearly twenty-five years, grinned, then turned the picture round so the two could see it.

“ Well I never, what a surprise. This is the very well known local pond-life ‘ Rodney Jones’ aka ‘Rodders’,” he told the pair.

“You know him?” asked Martin.

“Young Rodders has been a pain in the arse since he could walk. When little he was used by bigger lads to put his arm through letter boxes on front doors to reach across and open the latch so the house could be burgled. I wonder why he has degenerated to smashing up stones? There must be a reason. Alas his mate has only the top of his head showing and all we can see is his balaclava. I’ll take a statement from you Sir as this is your exhibit,” he continued and then drew some statement sheets from his briefcase and fed them into the printer. The travellers scout was very interested in all this and eventually signed with a big cross witnessed by Martin, as he could not read or write. Well, that is what he told the SOCO. The scout then trotted back to his caravan with a smile on his face. Once inside he told his wife a bit of useful information that she might pass on to the group.

“You remember the other night when I told you there was someone sniffing around our vans.”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Well, I now know who the tosser was,” he told her and sat with a smile forming on his face. One or two of his mates had had their van cabs searched but nothing taken. Perhaps a certain lad might need a bit of educating about trying to steal from travellers and keeping his nose out of others property.

********

It was all over a twenty-one millimetre socket spanner. The head of the Steam Department was at loggerheads with the head of the Carriage and Wagon Department (C&W). Each individual engineering department had its own tool cupboards and chests and a 21mm socket had gone missing. Why anyone would use a ‘metric’ 21mm socket on ancient equipment that was built with ‘imperial’ Whitworth nuts and bolts was anybodies guess. There had been a few shouting matches in the shed over the matter and now the two factions had separated and started up their own separate tea funds. On the face of things this may seem logical but when you take into consideration that half the steam crew were also the same crew who repaired the carriages the ludicrousness of the matter comes to light. Tools were kept on shadow-boards so when one was removed its space was highlighted by a red mark. Tools are expensive and if dropped into certain parts of any loco or carriage braking system and left they could cause a serious accident. No matter where everyone looked, that 21mm socket spanner could not be found. Internal politics were now taking over and things had risen up to the Executive Committee level. It did not help that the two heads of departments (Hod) did not like each other either anyway.

“That bloke is just an officious buffoon,” the Hod of steam complained to his crew during that Tuesday Gang’s work-day. “Why can they not use their own tools, they get a budget just as we do, they could easily buy one.”

Then on the Saturday when a few of the C&W lads were in to sort out a noisy four-wheel-bogey on a carriage their Hod complained, “ That bloke is just an officious buffoon, I’ve never touched his ruddy sockets.” The lads just looked at each other as this crew were of course the same chaps who had listened to the steam Hod on the Tuesday.

*********
With the shed teams not speaking to each other and the previous Sunday being the last day of the summer operating season, and there being a month before the beginning of the Santa Trains, the ‘Permanent Way’ crew were out fixing a few urgent problems on the line. Why anyone ever called the railway track laying on its ballast a ‘permanent way’ had defeated this crew.

“Just look at these three wooden sleepers,” Martin said to Dave. The three offending sleepers were ancient big British Rail sleepers that had been cut in half, thus making two for this two-foot gauge railway. They had disintegrated into wood pulp and had obviously fed a lot of woodworm over the years. They were doing nothing for the rails that now hovered an inch above them. John and Ted were with them as well making up the team of four. These were the same Martin, Dave, John and Ted who wore other hats within the railway’s organisation except today they would be doing back-breaking physical work.

“We will have to pull them and replace them, we cannot have three rotten sleepers in line, though I am prepared to overlook the odd one on its own,” Martin, as ‘Elf & Safety Manager’ (yet another hat), told his crew.

Dave replied, “These are some of the old BR ones we cut in half years ago, they will be soaked and waterlogged and weigh a ton each.” He bent down and gently lifted out the big steel spikes from the pulp, that had once been driven in with a huge sledge-hammer to fix the rail to the wood.

It was to be pickaxe and shovel work that day with some heavy lifting thrown in. They all had to wear steel-capped working boots with high-visibility jackets and all were well wrapped up against the weather as cold icy rain was expected. At the last line inspection it was judged that about thirty odd sleepers required urgent renewal. The new ones recently purchased were of a softer wood and thinner and would be fixed to the rails by coach-screws and plates, unlike the big spikes previously used. The thinner section sleepers would need extra ballast so there would be lots of shoulder muscle wearing shovelling.

“There is one thing about this railway you know,” Ted told the other three, “ you never need to go to any expensive Gymnasium. We get all the workouts we require with this sort of heavy stuff.”

“Yes, “ added John, “ but it is to muscles you have not used for ages so you are knackered for days afterwards.”

“Agreed, but there is no gain without pain,” Ted said.

As Martin wielded a pickaxe at the compacted earth and old ballast securing a sleeper that had happily sat there for over twenty years he added, “ You can say ‘pain’ again.”

“OK,” answered Ted, “ pain, pain, pain.”

Whilst Ted and Martin attacked the first sleeper, Dave and John carried out the necessary servicing of the nearby ‘fish-plates’. They undid the four bolts holding the fish-plates to the rail-joint, greased the plates then refitted them. This was to permit the rail to move when it expanded in hot weather and contracted in cold weather. The fish-plates were the rails joint and their securing nuts and bolts were of necessity modern metric ones. The bolts and nuts in fact had 21mm heads and the socket spanner Martin had ‘borrowed’ from the shed the previous week fitted perfectly. Little did he know what a political storm he had unwittingly started within the LBLR.

There was a monthly EC meeting that evening, one that was meant to get all the various Hods together to sort out the little things. It had started reasonably well but soon the undercurrents between the C&W department and the steam department surfaced. It became quite acrimonious and ended with the C&W Hod leaping across the little Formica table in the Café and pulling the Steam Hod across it by his collar till their respective noses touched. Martin had to dive in and intervene and separate the two before it descended into fisticuffs.

“For Pete’s sake will you two calm down,” shouted Martin, “We will never get anywhere like this. We are here to try to get a joint agreement over how we approach this notice to quit the land we are on. John has something to tell us. Go ahead John.” Before John could get a word in, Pete asked why it was for his sake. He was ignored.

“Well, the solicitors have spoken to the GGD legal department and they were unaware that we were still operating as a railway. They had been told it all folded up in 1968 when the quarry closed. Yes, I know that sounds amazing but you have to realise these people live in ivory towers and never venture outside. It might also be because they are about one hundred miles away from Long Bustard and had never heard of us. Our solicitors have put a block on the notice and we are to go into negotiations. This will take ages if past experience is anything to go by,” John told the assembly. The two Hod’s of the C&W and Steam Dept. just glared at each other across the table. He continued, “It will take quite some time to sort out the eviction notice but it is now on hold. Once you involve legal proceedings and solicitors, things seem to slow down and take months. Which gets me on to the travellers in our car park. GGD’s legal chaps have taken this over as they are the landlords. The travellers know the law as well as anyone and will exercise their rights right up to the last day.”

Martin then added, “The travellers have proved very useful as one of them witnessed the damage to our platform. The local police are looking into it.”

“We will not be holding our breath then?” commented the steam Hod. “What’s this I hear about us getting a new station?”

“As far as I can ascertain it is mostly rumour, nothing is in writing. It is all to do with the provision of two community rooms for the new estate they are going to build,” Martin told them.

The only other thing of any interest came from the Tuesday Gang. The chap who ran their tea fund had been buying a lottery ticket once a week for ages with the profits. Alas they had never won anything but you never know. Things then wound up and the meeting broke up.

*********

“Well, we got paid then,” commented Rodney as he dished out a couple of twenty-pound notes to his side-kick as they sat in the Sun public bar.

“Yep, that will provide a few bevies,” was the answer as the cash was stuffed into a jeans pocket.

“I’ve had some more instructions from ‘them’. We are to nibble away at the edges enough to cause them problems, nothing serious yet, just enough to be a pain. My guess is ‘they’ are trying to get the railway to move off the land,” Rodney confided. “They will be getting ready for the Santa Specials soon, we will start then.”

*******

Chapter Six.
Santa Specials.

Only half the length of the railway line was used for the Santa Specials. This permitted seven trains to be run the one-point five miles there and one point five miles back from Longtown Loop, which took just long enough to get twenty-five children back at the station in to see Santa individually. That way there were no really long queues, well not unless Santa had to see one little grandchild and the parents and all the grandparents wanted to take a photo. Sometimes with today’s extended families there could be as many as twelve adults accompanying just one young child. It was now the beginning of December and the travellers had pulled a fast one on the law. They had indeed moved off the staff’s car park where the land belonged to GGD, but they had only moved a few hundred yards onto the car park for Town Park, which belonged to the Town Council. The Town Council had now to go through the extended civil proceedings to move them on. Only the solicitors were making money out of all this. The LBLR had had to concede to not running noisy diesel locos early on weekend mornings so the chap who had the hangover had partially won. The rules now said no diesels before eight o’clock. As the first train out on busy summer-season days was at 10.40am this did not impinge too much on loco preparation. Again the only people who made any money out of all of this were the solicitors!

It was a Friday night in the first week of December that saw Rodney and Tom moving about the area in front of the Café. They quietly lifted a man-hole cover and dropped in a four inch diameter wooden ball. The drain they were at was the joining area for the Café, the public loos and the station staff loo where all these drains merged and then ran down a four-inch waste pipe. The slightly bigger ball would block this pipe nicely causing you-know-what to back up. There was sufficient pipe length to act as storage as the poo backed up for the loos to not overflow until about mid-morning the next day. The next day was Saturday and the first day of the Santa Trains.

Then the pair silently moved out into the main road and twisted the brown tourist signs for the LBLR so they all pointed in the wrong directions. The two thugs intended to visit the station the next day to see what effect their actions would have.

*******

Saturday was the day that the train crew had to obey the new rule about noise. The loco crew were about just after 7.30am and lit up No4’s firebox inside the shed to save time. This had the inevitable effect of filling the whole interior of the shed with thick, acrid smoke as the fires struggled against damp paper, wet tinder wood and moist coal all added to the cold damp weather. Dave was driving today under instruction of the head of the steam department and Keith was again the cleaner-cum-flag boy. This duty not only included cleaning the loco, flagging the roads but also of unlocking and locking the gates along the line, put there to stop youths who stole cars from dumping them and blocking the railroad. The Hod would act as the fireman. Again Pete was the guard and eventually Rob arrived late obviously having only just got out of bed. As the trains only ran half the length, they could run twice as many trains. This meant the train crew only had about fifteen minutes between trains so they were in for a long day, hopefully dotted by the odd cup of tea the DM would sort out for them. As Martin was today’s DM and he understood the system, he had already brought in some milk, obtained tea bags and a kettle that worked. These had been borrowed from the Tuesday Team’s tea fund draw so the crew put in a contribution towards the costs. As mentioned before, driving a steam loco takes all of your time and energy. Pete’s job as Guard would be hard as well with dozens of over-excited children on each train. Unlike the rest of the year where one just turned up and brought a train ticket, the Santa Specials were all pre-paid and pre-booked. They were invariably booked up solid such were their popularity so this meant the Café and the shop would also earn their keep this month.

After the second train had left bulging at the seams with little heads and lots of Thomas the Tank Engine flags waving out of the carriage windows, Martin noticed that the man hole cover in the yard outside the Café was weeping what looked like washing up water. He walked over to it and lifted the cover with a crow bar. It was full to the top with you-know-what. He dropped the lid shut and went into the station.

“John, John,” he yelled out as he looked for the railways planning officer, today’s shop assistant, executive committee member and general dogsbody, “John, where the hell are you?”

“In here,” came a voice from the shop’s storeroom. John was busy topping up the sacks of presents that Santa was getting through at a rapid rate. “What do you want? I’m very busy.”

“John, do we have any drain rods?”

“What on earth do you want them for? There is a set in the old container across the yard. You will have to search for them as everyone shoves their rubbish in there,” John told Martin.

“Ruddy drains are blocked and now flooding the yard, just what we need with all these passengers about.”

Martin went into the little general office and took the keys to the container from the key cupboard. After a search of the container, an old van body, in pitch black as there was no electricity in there he eventually found the bag with the rods inside. Within minutes he was trying to ram the rods down the exit pipe of the drain, but unseen by him under the water and poo was the wooden ball dropped in by Rodney. With a final hefty heave Martin shoved the rods in and felt something give way. Again, unseen under the sewerage the wooden ball had split, weakened by being soaked in water. One half of the ball was rammed into the pipe, the other half floated up and popped out onto the surface. Thinking he had found the blockage he gave a few more good thrusts with the rods hoping to clear the ‘backlog’. Instead he found the rods went about three feet into the exit pipe then stopped. The level of effluent did not drop as there was still a blockage. So putting the cover back on he went back into the office just as the train pulled into platform two. Two little boys jumped out of the first carriage and ran into the public toilets. There was a scream and they shot out again like corks from a pop-gun.

“Mummy, Mummy, there’s lots of poo floating about on the floor in there, Billy stood on one Mummy,” yelled one of them to his parents. The other was shaking his foot to rid it of the thing stuck to the sole.

Just then Martin came back out of the office to be confronted by the boy’s father.

“Excuse me, but your toilets are overflowing, my son has fouled his shoes in there,” he complained.

“Yes Sir, I am aware we have a blocked effluent pipe. I have just telephoned some specialists to come and clear the blockage,” Martin told him.

“Yes, but what about my son’s shoes?”

“Buy him a new pair and send us the bill. We will pay for some new ones Sir,” Martin was forced to offer.

The chap seemed satisfied and went into the Café after his family. Then another group of passengers approached him.

“We’ve just been in the Ladies and it’s flooded,” the first lady told him.

“Yes, and there are things floating about in there as well,” the second added.

“And look, some of its is coming up out of the drain cover in front of the Café. Look!” said the third lady.

“Yes, yes, I am looking into it all ladies,” Martin explained.

It was obvious that the blockage was going to be serious and if there were no toilet facilities the Café would have to close. The stuff now floating about the yard was certainly not good for hygiene. Then a middle-aged man walked up to Martin and took his breath away.

“I am a health inspector by trade young man (Martin was at least in his mid sixties) and I cannot fail to notice you have sewerage floating about everywhere. You must close the place up until it is sorted out. There are lots of young children here and they are very susceptible to the terrible diseases that effluent can bring. Either you close voluntarily now or I will get my colleagues to call in half an hour and serve a notice on you, sorry,” he said finally.

“OK, we will have to close Sir,” Martin said resignedly.

He walked back into the office and picked up the platform Tannoy microphone, “Ladies and Gentlemen, unfortunately and beyond our control we are having to close the railway. If you have not seen Santa or travelled on the train please call at the ticket office for a refund.”

Ted, who was doing his turn in the ticket office was not pleased at all. The vast majority of these people had pre-paid when booking using their credit and debit cards. The refund would have to be made to those accounts. Whilst the queue formed to sort out the problem of money, Martin went out to the car park and put up a sign saying, ‘All trains cancelled today. Hopefully they will be running the next day, a Sunday. Would customers please check with the LBLR website to confirm this.’ The little railway was about to lose a lot of money it could ill afford to, not to mention the damage to its public image. Ted then had a bright idea, as the station building itself was not affected by the sewerage problem, he persuaded many parents to take their children to see Santa and gave them complimentary tickets for the next years season. Many accepted this and it saved lots of debit and credit card refunds, and the children were happy.

******

By mid-afternoon Martin was getting a little worried. There was still no sign of the plumbing specialist. As no one was using the loos now the levels had stabilised. He took his mobile phone from his pocket and dialled the number of the company who he had contacted that morning.

“Hello, LBLR here, Martin speaking, I phone this morning about our blocked drains,” he began, then listening for a minute said. “ Oh no he is not, I am sitting in our car park and it is empty.”

The operator at the company had told him the lad and his van was at the station sorting out the blockage, which of course he was not. The operator said she would call back. After a few minutes Martin’s mobile phone rang again.

“Hello, yes this is the LBLR. Where! Why on earth is he there? He will be with us soon? Good,” said Martin. The ‘lad and his van’ were indeed at a railway station, the main-line station the other side of the town. The lad had even found a blocked drain and had rodded it clear. Just as he was wandering about the main-line station looking for someone to sign his invoice his head office had phoned him. It was then the poor lad found out he was not the boss’s flavour of the month having gone to the wrong location. He had then been given instructions full of expletives to get to the LBLR-ASAP or else.

Another hour passed and still no sign of any specialist, so Martin once again called their office. This time the lady had an answer for him. The lad had got lost.

“What, lost? Can he not see the great big brown tourist signs all over this town that point to our railway?” Martin asked, now getting quite annoyed.

The lady informed Martin that the lad had just realised what the big brown signs meant and had phoned her to call Martin to tell him he was now on his way. It was now 3pm. As Martin sat on a seat outside the empty Café he looked across to the traveller’s caravans that filled half of the Town Park car park. This nudged a memory bank in his mind and he suddenly thought about what the Police were doing about that lad who smashed up the platform. It must be over a month since that SOCO called. What if Pete had been right at that meeting last month? What if all these problems were related? But then he thought that no one could have organised Mrs. Smith to hit that engineering train; that was just that day’s fate. But now the loos had been blocked as well.

*********

Oddly enough, just at the precise moment that Martin was sitting thinking about the LBLR problems, at the little market town’s Police Station Sgt Bloggs was going through the ‘work-boxes’ of the constables. Each constable would have any number of cases in hand at any one time and they kept the ‘file’ for each in their ‘box’. This permitted a supervisor to occasionally check on any progress being made. It was also very true that occasionally a constable going on annual leave would ‘distribute’ any unfinished files into another shifts ‘boxes’. The other shift would assume that a supervisor had done this, complain anyway about being overworked and underpaid, but then just get on with it. Some ‘files’ became notorious, and a ‘Criminal Damage’ file had done the rounds. This ‘file’ had been dumped from box to box and had now arrived back in the constable’s box to whom it had first been allocated. Why had this ‘file’ been passed about? Oddly enough it did have a ‘body’ on the end; that is an arrest. It was the offender who put everyone off. The Offender was one Rodney William Jones, white male, dob 01.01.75, 5ft 6ins, pale complexion, thin build, CRO 123456A (Criminal Record Office number). The file even had a photo taken of him smashing up the property. Sgt Bloggs removed the file from the constable’s box and then telephone the HQ Control Room. He requested that this particular constable be contacted via his radio, who was currently on duty and out on patrol, to get his little fat backside back into the Long Bustard Sergeant’s Office as quickly as he could, if not SOONER! This file required urgent action and dealing with and not sitting in the bottom of a certain constables ‘work-box’ rotting away. A few minutes later a rather chubby policeman was seen to leave a little café in the High Street with a mouth full of cake and get hurriedly into a panda car neatly parked in a Police Only bay.

*******

A little Peugeot van pulled into the front of the LBLR station and a very thin, pale, spotty male teenager stepped out of the drivers seat. He spoke to Martin who had got up off his seat to greet him.

“Sorry about this, they sent me to the wrong railway station and then I got lost. This is a new job to me. If I get anything else wrong today I could be for the chop you know,” he worriedly told Martin as he went to the rear of the van, unlocked the rear doors and took out his rods and man-hole cover levers. Martin showed him to the errant drain.

“This is it, I think something has jammed down the pipe a bit. We have had to cancel all the trains today upsetting lots of parents, grand parents and loads of little children. A health inspector threatened to close us down if we had not. It’s all a damn mess and hopefully you can rescue us,” Martin told the lad.

“I’ll try to shift it from this end first. If that fails I’ll go to the next drain cover down the system and ram the blockage back up this way. That should do it,” he explained.

With that the human bean-pole set about lifting off the cover whilst straddling the mire that was exuding up around it. He then put his superior rods to work and soon found the same answer that Martin had already discovered. The rods only went in about four feet then stopped. What ever it was it well and truly jammed in the pipe. He pulled out his rods and fitted a little screwed clawed device that looked as if it could eat through anything when rotated. Even though the lad worked hard this also failed.

“Well, looks like we will have to try shoving it back up this way. Where is the next man-hole cover?” he asked but before Martin could answer the lad splashed his way through the stream that was now running out of the hole towards a cover in the car park next to a shop that fronted onto the main road. This was some sixty yards away downhill from this cover. The lad for some reason left his two levers by the first man-hole only taking the rods. When he arrived at the lower man-hole cover he realised his omission, but instead shoved a crow-bar into one half of the cover. Now, this man-hole had a completely different cover to the round, light gauge one by the café which should have sounded alarms. It was square and not round. The square was actually two halves of a triangular shape each side so this cover was in two halves. This cover needed to be lifted by two people as it was of a much heavier section suited to the weight of vans and delivery lorries to the shop. It was thick cast-iron and not a steel-sheet pressing. Not to be outdone the lad shoved the crow bar into one half of this cover and heaved it upwards. The cover obviously wanting to conform to the instructions being given to it by the specialist, did indeed lift upwards. In doing so it also pulled its triangular mate sideways a little. This meant the two halves were connected by a small link; as the lad pulled so the second half began to lift. But by now he had nearly two-hundredweights of cast iron to deal with and he began to struggle. Gravity won in the end and to Martin’s utter amazement the now hovering cast iron triangles began to fall. They plunged down through the now gaping man-hole and disappeared down into it. The lad was obviously fighting to win but he simply did not have the necessary strength. He was rather surprised the cover had proved so massive and its weight had taken him by surprise. As the covers fell into the abyss the lad quickly let go of his crow bar or he too would have followed it down into hole.

Like slow motion the covers fell. Both Martin and the lad looked into the dark hole where they had gone and waited for the splash. It seemed to take ages and when it finally came their eyes were beginning to cope with the black. The lad had pulled the covers from a surface water drain. It was fifteen feet diameter under the car park and at least twelve feet deep, consisting of huge cast iron sections with holes in to let the water from the drains in the road soak away. It was in fact a huge soak-away and the lid was now embedded in the thick mud at the bottom. It was not a sewer and certainly was not ‘downstream’ from the station’s man-hole.

“Oh bloody hell,” came a little voice next to Martin. He looked to see a very pale lad staring down into the black water.

“Well, that’s not our drain is it?” he volunteered.

“No it ruddy ain’t. How on earth am I going to get those covers out. They are too heavy for me to lift and I cannot see any ladder down into it either,” the lad moaned.

“You find the other man-hole and I’ll organise something to cover this up for now. I’m more interested in getting our railway operating again,” Martin instructed our poor teenager.

The lad eventually found the correct cover behind the shop in its little back yard. He shifted the other half of the wooden ball in minutes and it too popped up floating in the sewerage by the Café. Meanwhile Martin put a sheet of plywood over the open man-hole and surrounded it with big orange traffic-cones from the container. Good job no one ever threw anything away on this railway. With a loud gurgling sound the masses of filthy water and floating poo disappeared down the man-hole, assisted by Martin with a bass broom. After signing the lads invoice for over two hundred pounds including a fifty pound immediate call-out fee, the lad drove off promising to come back with a new set of triangular covers. He was never seen again.

The landlord of the shop was the same as the LBLR as it was GGD. So Martin pulled a fast one on them by telling the shop’s owner to phone them up and say some unknown personage had lost the covers to the soak-away in the car park and it was a serious safety issue. To give them their due, a team of two workmen turned up an hour later to lift out the covers. They had a ladder and a small pump to get the water out of the huge hole so they could get in. It was only after about an hour’s pumping when the two men realised that as they pumped the tank dry onto the road’s gutter, the water was running down a nearby drain round in a circle and back into the soak-away refilling it. Only when they had put the pump's hose exit further down the road did the water level begin to drop. Martin took no notice of this, he was busy hosing down the two public toilet floors and the yard outside the café. The LBLR could now open tomorrow.

Two young men sitting on a bench in the park had been watching all these things occurring at the station, and one rubbed his hands together in glee.

*******

Chapter Seven.
A Result at Last.

It was getting colder as Rodney and his faithful sidekick crept across the park towards the LBLR station. It was also dark and nearly midnight. The twisting of the tourist signs to the LBLR earlier that week had given Rodney another idea. They had been busy that evening donning yellow high-visibility jackets and removing all the signs around the town for the LBLR, looking for all the world like council workmen. These brown tourist signs guided visitors to the station and where as once it was easy to find being on the edge of the town, now it was buried behind new housing estates and round-a-bouts. This would make finding the station a bit of an adventure Rodney told his mate, perhaps a few might even go home having given up.

“They did not make much money today, Eh?” giggles Rodney as they both climbed over the fence from the park onto the platform.

“No mate. Rodders you really are a nasty person,” Tom told him. Tom is Rodney’s sidekick. “That little wooden ball certainly earned its keep and caused utter chaos.”

“Tonight we will cause more problems for them, what you might call a crashing problem!” Rodney added. “ We are certainly making a few bob from this lark for ‘them’. I’ve not been able to afford beer all week for years.”

Under Rodney’s arm was a rather odd wood saw. It had a curved blade of quite fine teeth. It was what carpenters use to remove floorboards in a house so as to be able to get underneath them for various reasons. As the floor was flat the ‘curved’ cutting edge permitted the saw to cut just a few boards in the middle of the room hence saving ripping up good boards. The boards sawn out could be easily replaced if the carpenter had thought to cut half way over a joist. The Café at the LBLR was an old donated school classroom built by a firm called Terrapin back in the mid-1950s. It had begun to rot away and a LBLR Society member had heard it was available for free. So it had been un-assembled and transported to the station and then re-assembled, but that was back in the mid-1970s. It was still standing but only just. Its floor was made from elderly chipboard sheets that were beginning to delaminate and crumble. Rodney had actually worked a few weeks at Terrapins many years ago and knew that between the big joists under the floor were wooden, three-by-two stretchers. That is wooden supports between the main ones. The Café was held up off the ground by big steel screw-jacks on the main joists so it was possible to get under the floor if one laid on ones back. This was the essence of Rodney’s current plan.

“Right Tom, you sit here and be watch out whilst I go under and saw through a couple of the three-by-two stretchers. If you hear or see anyone, tap the wall with a stone, I will hear it but I will not be able to hear anyone approaching as I saw, see,” he said.

“See, saw, you trying to be funny mate?” joked Tom.

As Rodney shoved his way under the floor on his back with his torch he accidentally kicked Tom who grunted.

“Sorry mate, but that serves you right for that awful joke.”

**********

It was time, thought the travellers scout, to nip outside his caravan for a fag. As we know his large lady wife was none too pleased with the smell of stale cigarettes inside her very tidy home. This extended to dirty muddy shoes as well, as our scout had found to his chagrin. He lit up and wandered over towards the station across the park. It would not be long now before the Town Council served the travellers the final notice to quit their land. Sad really as he had become quite fond of this little railway line and its volunteers. He and many of his peers had been surprised to discover that not one person working for this tourist attraction and industrial museum got paid. He got on with the manager as well whose fatalistic sense of humour he shared. As he was walking on grass slowly he made no noise as he puffed away on the king-sized cigarette. Looking across at the Café he thought he saw a slight flash of light so he changed direction slightly and approached the area. Yes, he was correct, there was a torch being flashed about under the Café but as to why he had no idea. Then he heard what he knew to be the sawing of wood. Some rotter was sawing through the Café floor but why? Why try to break into a Café that only had tea bags in it and when the door locks were just simple domestic affairs? There must be more to it than this and he did not like it. Should he phone that manager fellow? No, he did not know his home or mobile number. That left only one alternative. He took his mobile phone from his pocket and for the first time in his fifty-two years on this planet he dialled 999.

********

At the town’s little almost Victorian Police Station, Sergeant Bloggs was settling down with his newspaper and a hot cup of cocoa. He was stretched out in one of the prisoner cells on the bed and expected to not have to do much that night. The two officers on duty were out on patrol in panda cars and would be out until they were due their refreshments break at about 2am. He sipped his cocoa and then looked into the cup. It tasted a bit odd, but never mind it was hot and sweet. Unknown to him the station cleaner had been in that afternoon. She came twice a week to do the toilets and the canteen. The toilet was one urinal and one loo for the men, and another loo for the ladies. The cleaner did a good job but did have rather an annoying habit. She would use the same cloth to clean everything. Having scrubbed the loos then washed out the urinal she had gone on to clear the huge pile of unwashed cups and plates on the draining board of the canteen sink. She used nice hot water and Fairy liquid and did a clean sweep of the tea stained tables, draining board and sink as well. She used the same cloth for it all, loos, cups and canteen, wringing it out as necessary, hence the rather odd taste of the Sergeants cocoa. It had never occurred to her to do anything different and she could make a cloth last well over nine months before it fell to bits and required renewing.

The Constable, whose ear was still humming from the ‘advice’ he had been given by the Sergeant over failing to keep up with the jobs in his work-box had just answered his radio. A young ladies voice came over the ether and told him to proceed to the LBLR station as a witness could hear what they thought was the Café being broken into. She added that he had better not use his siren or blue lights or it might alert the possible offenders. He very nearly told her to go and teach her Granny to suck eggs, but then thought that she might complain to the Sergeant and he had had enough of lectures for one night.

*******

Rodney had almost cut three-quarters of the way through the floor joist under the Café and decided that was enough. This joist was about four feet in from the entrance door, just where the queue for the counter would stand. Get a few fourteen stone chaps over that and it was bound to give way he thought to himself. Meanwhile his oppo was sitting day-dreaming at the edge of the floor at the rear of the Café, where Rodney had crawled under. Tom was not really the full shilling and was more of a Gofer ( go for this and go for that) than a real criminal. His Mum told everyone he was easily led. As he sat there staring into the black sky all he could hear was the rumble of the goods trains as they passed through the other side of the town. Otherwise it was quiet. Then Rodney’s head popped out next to him from under the building. The Café was an old temporary wooden classroom and sat up on screw-jacks leaving a two-foot gap underneath. Rodney’s appearance made Tom jump.

“Ruddy Hell! Rodders, you might have warned me or something,” complained Tom as his heart rate leapt past a hundred and fifty beats a minute.

“Shut up you nincompoop, do you want people to hear us?” scolded Rodney. “Is it all clear, can I come out?”

“Yes mate, nothing happening out here.”

Neither of them had heard the police panda car pull up the other side of the building. Nor did they have any inkling that a trap was about to be sprung on them. As Rodney got up and was dusting himself down of the sand and old leaves from under the Café, a voice suddenly spoke.

“Right Rodney Jones, you are nicked on suspicion of attempted burglary. So is your mate. Hello Tom,” said a voice they both knew well.

A torch came on and blinded the pair as its beam searched their faces. The ‘witness’ had met the officer and pointed out the crime scene and had then gone to his caravan to be interviewed later for a statement. It was not a good idea for him to be seen by these two yobs.

“Well, that’s blown it Tom,” said Rodney resignedly.

It was pointless trying to run away as the officer knew them both. Once they were installed in the police car and on their way to the main police station in Dunston some seven miles away, Rodney was also arrested for the file the officer had in his box. Rodney was very down at heart because he now thought that flash when the did the platform was indeed a CCTV camera, he could only plead guilty as he was well and truly caught ‘bang to rights’. The Sgt asleep in the old unused cell back at Long Bustard was awoken by his radio. He would have to take a panda car out as only one officer was now available due to the arrest. He was not best pleased.

“Give a copper a bollocking for not arresting people and what do they go and damned well do? Go out and ruddy well arrest people in the middle of the damned night. No bloody thought for the poor old Sergeant,” he mumbled to himself.

********

Back in the traveller scout’s caravan the witness was smiling.

“Got that little sod at last. You know, the one what was snooping abart our vans. I bet it was ‘im and ‘is mate who stole my tools last week,” he told his wife who just carried on knitting.

“How do you know it was them?” she asked him, not looking up but concentrating on not dropping a stitch.

“Well, I can’t prove it, but it was ‘em. I watched ‘em get into the police car. It’s the same pair. Never ‘ad to dial 999 before, did not take long for the Rozzer’s to arrive and they two did not put up any fight as he knew them both, the copper, I ‘eard ‘im talking to ‘em. Hope they ‘ang the little sods. Scum of the earth.”

“What! You can damn well talk. So you never stolen anything eh? Pot calling the kettle black,” came the reply from his beloved. There was no reply from the scout.

********

It was Sunday and the railway was ready for use again. Martin unlocked the station building and then took the token down to the steam loco crew who had been in for over an hour already. They had to get steam up ready for that day’s Santa Specials. There was a message on the station answer-phone for him to contact the Police Station at Dunston but this would have to wait until he had everything manned, up and running. He was the DM again. Today’s loco crew were the two old gents from the Tuesday Team who got on so well together with Ted the Café volunteer (and the LBLR magazine editor, as well as a trainee cleaner). His wife Jan was in the Café again with a new member who was about to have a day they would not forget for a while.

“So you got out of bed then,” the first old codger told the second one on the footplate.

“Why shouldn’t I then?” asked the second.

“Well, you must have read the obituaries in the paper and as you were not in them, you got up,” stated the first.

“Oh very funny, very funny indeed. What’s all this black stuff?”

“Coal you dimwit,” answered the first gent.

“I know that, do you think I am potty? No, this black stuff here,” the second said pointing to some greasy stuff oozing out of a bearing.

“Oh, that’s the new Moly Grease the steam department is using. It is awful stuff, get it on your face and it takes ages to come off,” was the reply.

Moly is an abbreviation for Molybdenum, a rock that grinds up into tiny slivers that slide easily over each other, ideal for hard-working very hot bits; not unlike graphite. It was also good for dobbing onto the end of another’s nose who would promptly try to wipe it off but just spread it further over their face.

“I’ve made up a gauge you know,” the second told the first.

“Oh yes, what for?” was the reply from inside the loco’s motion (the linkage that works the valves) as he oiled up all the various bits and linkages.

“To measure fish for fitting into batter,” was the reply.

“Go on then, what is the punch line?” came the groan from under the loco.

Alas it was drowned out by the boiler’s safety valves blowing off in a great cloud of steam and an explosion of noise. No4 was telling everyone she was nearly ready for the day’s work. They concentrated on collecting the carriages and brake checks before propelling the train into the platform where lots of wide-eyed children were waiting along with fathers and grandfathers who were trying not to show how excited they also were at seeing a real, live steam engine.

The Café was ready, the urn was boiling away ready for tea and coffee, the glass fronted shelves had lots of sandwiches of various fillings inside their little clear plastic boxes and Jan and her assistant were behind the counter smiling. It was important to make a good welcome to their customers, no one likes a miserable frown when they are out to visit Santa. A smile often sold an extra cake Jan told people and that was more profit for the LBLR. The first train had now come back and was about to set off on the second of seven trips that day. The children were filing slowly through ‘Santa’s Magic Tunnel’ in the station (a cleaned up, decorated staff room) and were now forming a queue into the Café. It all went well until a family of one child with about eight big built, well padded adults came in and stood at the end of the queue, about four feet in from the entrance door.

The first thing Jan became aware of that things were not as they should be was the loud tearing, ripping sound of the floor giving way. She looked up startled to see four men disappearing into a hole in the floor. Luckily the ground was only two feet underneath, but by then about four more adults had fallen over and the children were screaming.

Out in the public toilets Martin was emptying a can of air-freshener to camouflage the smell that still lingered from the previous day when he heard the noise. He had not got round to phoning the police so still did not know of the damage to the Café floor. He ran out and round into the Café to find the adults who had had the floor give way under them, all stepping out angry but unharmed.

“Is everyone OK?” he asked worriedly.

“I thought ruddy man-traps were illegal,” snapped one chap.

“What do you feed your woodworm on, passengers?” asked another.

“My Dad used a naughty word just now,” a little boy told Martin pulling at his sleeve. “ He fell down that hole and he swore. Will you ground him for that? He grounds me if I say it.”

“We all seem to be OK,” said Martin, ushering the group over to a vacant table. “Jan, free cups of tea and cake here please,” he suggested to Jan who was standing looking into the four foot diameter hole in her floor.

“Right away. What the hell will you do about that hole Martin?”

“I’ll get a sheet of steel from the shed to cover it for now and put some chairs round it. I knew the building was a bit rotten but never this bad.”

“I’ll have to sue this railway for the stress,” Martin overheard one chap say at the table.

“You, stressed, I should Co-Co. You do not even get stressed when your sister is driving; you are far too laid back,” came back his wife. “When she just missed that traffic warden on that Zebra Crossing last week you told her to go back and try again.”

“That was different, I put that down as an occupational hazard of being a Traffic Warden. This time it was me, I fell all of two feet,” he complained.

“What, like you do when you fall asleep on the settee after a few beers? The number of times you’ve fell off and landed on your head I doubt if you would even feel it now. Now what did Santa give you Tommy?” she asked giving up on her spouse and turning her attention to her Grandson who was far more interested in the present than old men falling through holes in Café floors.

Martin went off to the shed and re-appeared with a large bit of blue-painted sheet steel that looked surprisingly like the side of a loco cab. It was the side of a loco cab, a loco that was away getting a new boiler and new bearings in its motion. He staggered into the Café with it and dropped it onto the floor with a resounding metallic crash, not unlike a massive dustbin lid hitting a concrete floor. It made everyone jump.

“This will cover it over, I’ll pop a few bricks in the middle to support it Jan. If I pull the torn lino over it like this and stick it down with some ‘gaffer tape you would never know it was there, Eh?” he told Jan who was now far happier that the black hole in her day had been covered up.

In the months to come, where the loco the cab side came from returned to service, no one could find that missing sheet metalwork so they made a new one. The ‘repair’ was destined like many ‘temporary repairs’ at the LBLR to become permanent for some considerable time. The ‘Tuesday Team’ was used a week later to block up some wood underneath the floor to support it better and only the sticky tape required renewing about every month as it wore out. The uninjured visitors who fell through the floor were given complimentary tickets.

*******

In the little general office in the station the phone rang. The lad in the ticket office answered it and then called for Martin. Having sorted out the Café he was now busy with paperwork and had hidden himself in the shop’s storeroom. He could not use the staff room as Santa was busy seeing children; twenty-five of them every forty minutes. Martin picked up the shop telephone extension to find he was speaking to the custody sergeant at Dunston Police Station.

“Hello Sir, Sgt Smith here. Been trying to get round to contacting you all morning. We arrested a know felon last night with his mate. They were trying to break into your Café. They were cutting a hole in the floor when they were caught. A witness heard them and dialled 999. We also arrested the lad for the damage to your platform last month. He has coughed to it all,” Martin was informed.

“Coughed? Is he ill?” asked Martin.

“No, coughed is Police slang for admitting it all. He confessed. He will go before the Magistrates Court tomorrow on Monday morning and will be bailed. As he has been a bad boy many times before he will probably get a small custodial sentence but that will not be for a few months yet. We have to let the solicitors have a bit of time so they can claim they wrote lots of letters and get their Legal Aid fees. The Constable who arrested him will contact you soon. Hope you sorted out the floor before anyone had an accident,” the Sgt finished off laughing.

“Thanks very much,” Martin told him, feeling it might be prudent not to mention the floor had already given way when the Café was full of customers.

The day ended on a better note. Pete had been the train guard and was walking towards his ancient motorcycle to go home when he saw someone hunched by it. It was Dave again and he had been caught red-handed with an old tin with oil in it, pouring the oil underneath in a pool.

“You rotten sod,” yelled Pete. “The number of times I’ve pulled that machine to bits trying to find the leak, I'll give you an oil leak mate,” he shouted as Dave got up and began to sprint down the platform away from the enraged Pete. Under the motorcycle a little pool of black oil shone in the sun.

Dave had made a too-fast get away and his shoe caught in some oil still dripping from the old baked bean tin. He slipped and laid himself out his full length on the tarmac surface, winding himself and unable to get up as Pete’s boot caught him in the groin. Pete too was tripped up but fell on top of Dave. Dave now had a sore crutch as well as fifteen stones of Pete on top of him. Martin had seen all this and moved quickly to stop what was bound to develop into a punch up. This would not impress the passengers.

Pete rolled to one side and sat there breathless. “You rotten swine, I’ll get my own back on you.”

Dave was actually laughing even whilst holding his groin in his cupped hands. “ Well, it was a good laugh whilst it lasted,” he said.

**********

To be continued, as Part Three.