Over the weekend of 9th – 10th January there was a sudden outflow of water from the mine at Lea Bailey. At approximately 9pm on the Saturday local residents reported a loud noise heard from the direction of the mine, and on the Sunday morning debris and water were reported on the road below the mine. On visiting the mine later that morning it was found that the mine doors had burst open, some rolling stock stored just inside the…
Note: This post was created in May 2016 using photographs from June 2015. Due to an oversight by the Administrator, no write-up had been provided. The following was written from memory in July 2023 using the photographs as a guide. The Wingrove & Rogers WR8 had been stored on top of the bogie wagon along with the 18″ gauge WR5. In order to make progress in the restoration to working condition it needed to be lowered back onto the running…
As part of the original preservation project at Lea Bailey in the mid-1990s, a steel tank was delivered to the site. As is common at Freemines in the Forest of Dean, things are re-used for something other than their original purpose (the Haywood Drift Mine near Cinderford uses one as an entrance) our example had been modified by having a door cut in one end and drainage slots in the bottom. By a happy coincidence, the door was just the…
The Forest of Dean has always been a “working forest” and that means at some point something has to be done with all the trees to prevent the whole area reverting back to the wild. To that end, the Forestry Commission has an ongoing programme of thinning out mature trees in order to give the others more room to grow, and also allowing daylight to reach the forest floor which in turn encourages plant growth. A local contractor has been…
During March the regular group of Sunday volunteers set about re-laying the back siding behind the tin shed. When originally laid, the basic levelling had been done by Pat Clifford in a hired mini-digger, with the rest of the work being done by hand using shovels. Because of the levels and gradients involved (nothing in the Forest of Dean seems to be flat) many of the sleepers had to be dug into individual “pits” which was far from ideal. Therefore,…
Using up the last of the new sleepers, with the exception of a few saved for finishing off the long siding behind the shed, our hardy volunteers set about relaying the section of track between the passing loop and the curve leading to the mine. The original sleepers used to construct the railway 20-odd years ago were ex British Rail standard gauge timber sleepers cut in half and most still retained their cast-iron chairs for holding the rails, simply turned…