The South Devon Railway is helping Amey-Seco by allowing their brand new 08 Tamper to access the branch for training purposes. The brightly painted yellow and orange machine arrived on the evening  of August 5th to begin a series of evening sessions. Various operators will be shown over it by an instructor from Plasser & Theurer before letting it loose on various sections of the branch. The 08 has two banks of tamper heads with 32 tines altogether.
Each bank can operate with the other or one set only, left or right. A brush regulator allows tidying up of the track after the passage of the machine.
The picture shows the machine at Staverton after arrival. It is also hoped to give various drivers training on the main line between Exeter and Liskeard using the SDR as the base made possible by the use of the main-line connection at Totnes. The arrival of the machine was the first use of the connection with Railtrack for almost two years and also saw the "christening" of the new gate just erected  by the Totnes station volunteers across the link from SDR to Railtrack.