As you can all hopefully see from the attached pix, and barring any last minute unexpected problems, the repairs to South Port Leat bridge at Staverton will be finished today (8th February 2012) in time for us to run the full length of the line as planned from this coming Saturday (11th February).

Earlier this afternoon, the General Manager, Dick Wood, and Director Andy Stevens signed off the very professional work done by our contractor Ultim8 Construction run by Paul Coates of East Devon, with just a few jobs being concluded by site foreman Colin Stephens.

The permanent way manager, Andy Matthews, already has a large team of PW staff and volunteers on hand starting to put the track back in place this afternoon and evening which will hopefully be completed tomorrow (Thursday), and the S&T equipment will be re-instated on Friday so we can run steam trains on Saturday for the February Half Term week!

This has been quite a taxing project for everyone involved, but it has gone virtually to plan and programme from day one (Monday 9th January) to planned completion on Friday 10th February –– so, congratulations are due to the small team of SDR personnel, our main contractor and sub-contractors who together planned, costed, sourced, programmed, followed the various legal & safety requirements, and delivered the various tasks, materials and quality workmanship at every stage on a difficult job done against the clock, but which has been completed bang on time and under budget too!

As a result of these works completing on time we will be running steam auto trains for the whole of the February Half Term from Saturday 11th to Sunday 19th February using the Red timetable. The details are:

• Saturday 11th - Sunday 12th - Steam Auto
• Monday 13th - Diesel Railcar (steam is on a private charter that day)
• Tuesday 14th - Sunday 19th - Steam Auto
• Saturday 25th - Sunday 26th - Steam Auto (plus another steam on private charter on Sunday)
• Saturday 3rd March - Diesel Railcar
• Sunday 4th - Steam Auto
• Saturday 10th - Diesel Railcar
• Sunday 11th - Steam Auto
• Saturday 17th - Diesel Railcar
• Sunday 18th - Steam Auto

As can be seen from the General Manager’s pictures above the track has been re-instated and the first loads of ballast distributed.
A GWR Toad and class 25 7612 have crossed the repaired bridge which is now rated at 23.5 tonne axle loading at 25 mph.