A more than usually hard job – two and a half hours of ivy hacking – to unearth a donated 3 yard length of original Southwold Railway rail, which used to hold up a Wenhaston resident’s washing line.
John Ridgway and James Hewett absented themselves from rolling stock work at the SRT workshop for this: you can’t see John because he’s behind the camera – but he did more than half the work, and provided transport for the rail (and a hundredweight or so of ivy as well) back to Southwold.
It was still worth it, though, as there are very few genuine SR artefacts left: this rail is at least 84 years old, and could even be 134, as the SR only lasted for fifty years – not enough to wear out all its original rail.
We now have about 37 feet of rail, but need another 83 feet for workshop use – and of course for posterity.