Chairman’s Notes – November 2006
It has been a busy Summer for our volunteers working on the project. The Board have been working hard, with the assistance of Trevarno Estate, drawing up plans that include the station area at Trevarno bridge, restoration of the bridge at the footpath crossing and relaying of the track up to Trevarno’s southern boundary.
We have also been in informal discussions with Kerrier District Council planning staff to ensure that we have included everything they will need to know when the formal application is published. Hopefully this will happen soon.

Our Head of Permanent Way and his helpers have been busy at Penryn stripping scrap rail from 1950s concrete sleepers. The track panels have come off the Falmouth Branch which has seen replacement with new track earlier this year.
 

We will have sufficient concrete (and some timber) sleepers for the whole length of track we need to restore at Trevarno, and some have now been delivered to the track bed there – probably the most significant amount of track materials the branch line has seen since it was broken up in 1965. This will be a relief to our Membership Secretary who has been collecting numerous names for our Sponsor-a-Sleeper campaign. In addition we can now boast over 300 Supporters.

Thanks go to:

Network Rail for letting us have the scrap sleepers,
Cornwall Motor Auctions for allowing us to separate them from the rails in their yard,
(and not least) our Membership Secretary for his excellent work in attracting supporters and sleeper sponsors.

Our vegetation clearance team have also been busy at work, on Thursdays and Sundays, between Trevarno’s southern boundary and Truthall Halt, .

The Helston Diesel Group’s restoration of the Park Royal DMU continues with work taking place on the First Class compartment of the Driving Trailer. Donated carpet has been fitted and the seats installed. Research has also commenced on a Heritage Lottery bid.

Not on Helston Railway metals yet, but here is a shot of King Edward 1 passing Gwinear Road (and an unseen inferior mode of railway transport) on 29 October 2006