More supplies arrive.

Thursday at Broadway.

Another fine sunny day, so brick laying went apace.

We had a steamer on today (3850) and a DMU - the one that is now for sale. It certainly looked very tidy, the buyer will be a very lucky one to get this.

As the unit is leaving the GWSR, we thought we'd take a few pictures of it, and then there is also a video at the end of Thursday's report.

Here's a portrait of it in the station, taken from the vantage point of the signal box steps.

 

The day looked very busy for the station staff. Lots of people on the platform here, and you can glimpse a coach in front of the station, one of two we saw at Broadway on Thursday. Let's hope that trickles down to the bottom line, there are the slip repair works at Toddington to pay for, and there is talk of a platform extension at Toddington by contractors.

Neal dropped in at the beginning of the day, before heading off to work on the canopy steelwork in the 'greenhouse'.

Neal reports that a further session of rivetting has taken place. Good progress then, it's all falling into place.

At the time of writing a visit by the RRV is planned on Monday to resupply the build with sand and cement, and move some pallets into more convenient positions.

During Thursday another 75 or so plinth headers were laid. John is well down the back now. The next session should see us round the corner and across the end, leaving the front to do.

That said, there won't be any brick laying next week, as John is taking a week off.

We spent most of the day dealing with the sizeable pile of bricks and rubble under the steps. Occasionally an anonymous wheelbarrow full arrives with more broken bricks, and then progress goes backwards, such as on Thursday.

We have now filled a pallet with recovered blues and reds, so it's not just rubble that we are making. Amongst the debris from the former waiting room is this piece of original slate. This is likely to have been used in the gents, possibly as a divider.

 

The piece is an inch thick, and if cut would make a square piece of 12 inches all round.

Is this of interest to anyone? If so, drop us a line via the blogger contact form. (top right)

The sun goes down earlier these days, so the last service, with the DMU again, had a bit of a glint on it. By this time the crowds had gone, and there was just a handful of passengers returning to Broadway.

With no new passengers to attend to, we found driver, guard and stationmaster chatting, as the engine burbled away beside them.

Below is the link to the new video of the unit's departure earlier in the day.

https://youtu.be/--HQbrPslKk

 

 

 

Saturday out with the gang.

Seven of us on Saturday, and back to Gotherington. But that was pleasant - we had a nice chat with the owner of the station, and the pulling out of the spikes from the sleepers is always a fascinating challenge.

First things first, another dip manifested itself not far from the kink last week at the Skew bridge. This was at Granna Lane bridge.

The more experienced of us are now handling two jacks at once. Tony eyed us in, as we pumped, others started to find spare ballast to feed the Robels that filled the voids.

This was the site of the kink, north of Gotherington station, which you can see in the distance.

 

Nick stood ready to get going with the Robels, as 2807 accelerated away into the curve.

The dip was simple to fix, so we walked up to the yard at Skew Bridge to help Dave load some bags of ballast. These are for use at our young engineers weekend, which is coming up.

Skew bridge is among our favourite spots for a lineside shot, as is the Dixton straight, with Three Arch bridge just behind. Here 3850 leans into the curve that leads into Gotherington station.

After fixing the dip and filling two bags of ballast by hand, there was a certain tiredness amongst the gang, so we decided that it was lunch time.

Bryan was kind enough to let us sit on his bench, which as you can see, was also in the dry.

 

It was a day of dodging the showers - easy at Gotherington - so the ground was wet when we started the replacement of three more sleepers there.

We usually hammer the plates sideways, once the spikes are out (the fun bit). But one wouldn't budge, which was odd. Maybe if we took the weight off it with a couple of pumps on the jack?

Still no good, it was as if the base plate was nailed to the sleeper.

And it was ! Once we wiped the dirt off, you could see that instead of removing the spikes, the gang back in 1997 just cut the tops off, and put a new spike in the third hole (and vice versa on the other side).

So there was nothing for it but to jack the track up some more, and pull out the sleeper, base plate and all.

The replacement sleeper was easily fitted, but fitting it with replacement base plates - of the type with regular chair screws - didn't go well, as we couldn't get the holes to line up.

 

This puzzled us. Which idiot drilled the holes an inch out?

Rubbing some rust off the castings revealed that while two base plates looked the same, they had different numbers that varied by one digit.

The mysteries of track repair. You learn every day.

Then 2807 drifted into the station.

 

We stood back and leaned against a convenient platform wall.

A few more sleepers through the station need replacing, as already second hand in 1997. It's not clear why wood was used here - perhaps for authenticity - but Bryan said that he had no say in the choice of sleepers. However, the track was laid through the down road, as the up platform is (mostly) Bryan's property. The loop was installed a few yards further south, away from the station,  for the same reason.

In other PWay news, we have been successful in obtaining some rail that was lifted from the army camp at Bicester.

Two enormous lorries came to Toddington, laden with concrete sleepers.

The bundles of sleepers were so large that it would take our little Telehandler all day to unload them, so we hired in a rather more muscular model, which you can see here.

The sleepers have been stacked on the edge of the old garden centre site. Based on the number of related rails, there were about 375 of them.

The rail is still to come - 30 lengths of 60ft 113lb FB rail, in good condition. This will eventually serve to swap out some of the lesser quality stuff that we laid in the early days.

At Winchcombe, STEVIE was spotted with bags of sand and cement, ready for somewhere to go.

Monday at Broadway.

We are running out of sand and cement - there is just one bag of cement left at the time of writing. Just as well that our chief brick layer John is away for a week. Six more bags of sand, and twentyfive bags of cement have been delivered - to Winchcombe. Then it was a question of finding a free non-running day to get STEVIE to deliver it to Broadway on a trolley.

After quite along wait on Monday, people being late due to the heavy rain, STEVIE arrived at Broadway to meet a pair of surprised passengers.

The first job was to unload the 25 bags of cement to the front of the storage container.

These then had to be humped inside the container, about half a ton's worth.

STEVIE then reversed back to the site, where the 6 bags of sand were unloaded to a spot under the bridge.

 

 

While STEVIE was at Broadway the opportunity was seized to reposition some pallets and bags around the site. The bags of ballast at the south end were taken to the north end, out of the way. This makes the south end look neater.

Several pallets of reds were then moved closer to the build, as we will be needing these soon, and don't want to have to trudge up and down the platform to keep John supplied.

Tuesday with the Usketeers (not Wednesday)

Due to the heavy rain, and similar outlook, we moved our Wednesday on the fence to Tuesday, the least bad day of the week. Three of us on Tuesday then, with Dave away for a week.

First thing to do was check out what Neal told us on Monday: the trusses have been moved inside the loco shed - 3850 having completed its overhaul - and are positioned ready for riveting.

Here they are, stood on a fascia board for support, with an A frame overhead to keep them upright.

 

Coffee drunk, and a week's news exchanged, we got on with our jobs.

John made lead caps for the big uprights. These will prevent one of the prinicpal causes of rot in the wood, water penetration from above. The other big cause is rotting at ground level, and we have prevented that by means of the godfather posts.

So the fence should last.

Paul was completing the rectification of the fence's line. As the concrete posts have had to avoid a buried powerline, and big tree roots, the line was less straight than we would have wanted.

This was corrected in two places with spacer blocks of wood, one of which you can see here. Now the line is pretty much perfect, but for a small detour around that pine tree.

 

 

Yours Truly was on creosoting the fence, for a second time. We really want this fence to last, and also look darker, as it used to. Just one coat makes the wood come out in a tan colour.

After correcting the line of the fence, Paul made a start with the final panel of the featherboard fence that we put up earlier. An 18 inch gap by the gate had not yet been closed.

Here is that gap now closed, and the featherboard fence finally completed.

The second coat of the creosote is also done, and we have also sourced a length of chain to lock the double gate. 

All that now remains to do is to finish fitting the lead caps, and load up the Heras fencing panels and take them back into store at Winchcombe. Next week should see that done, and we have also booked ourselves a table in a nearby pub for a little celebration - at our expense, of course.

Block laying at Broadway will be next for the Usk team then.

Finally, just a heads up for our Young Engineers event this weekend, at Toddington. A big tent has already been erected. Do come and have a look around, if you are the slightest bit interested. We would love to see you.

 

 

 

Taking a car down a railway tunnel.

A final report from the Cinque Terre railway line. This ran between La Spezia and Sestri Levante, and due to the steep rocky cliffs that go right down to the sea, much of the line was built in tunnels at great expense. It opened in 1874, and was built as a single track line. It soon became apparent that a single track railway could not handle the volume of traffic, and from the 1930s to 1971 the line was completely rebuilt a short distance further inland, now with double track.

That left the old, single track line unused, with 51 tunnels in just 28 km.

We mentioned in an earlier blogpost that 6km of the old tunnels have been converted into an attractive coastal cyclepath. At the northern end of the rebuilt line, just south of Sestri Levante, the remaining tunnels are in use as a road, as there is no road along this steep coast. Not a lot seems to have been done to the old railway tunnels, just tarmac and some lights. They are slightly wider than your car...

There is a traffic light system for alternate streams. A notice explains that the traffic light turns green three times an hour, and you are required to keep to a minimum speed of 40 km/h, to keep things going. That's pretty fast if you are just 2ft from the tunnel wall, for several miles.

In the middle there is an open bit, and a second traffic light. As were were then head of the queue, we got Mrs. Blogger to record this second half:

https://youtu.be/OV1O9uwDJsg

The road-in-a-tunnel ends at Deiva Marina. Most of the rest to Framura (start of the cycle route) is disused, and in places affected by rock falls.

 

 

At Deiva Marina the line ran right along the beach, in an elevated position.

This picture was taken from where the tracks used to run, and the yellow building on the left is the former station building, now a restaurent. (very fitting)

 

 

The back of the building gives you an idea how high it was above the beach.

To the left is the remains of a little underpass that gave direct access to the beach. 

Several further arches were replaced in the 1970s by a concrete underground car park and shopping centre. It was a nice idea at the time, very modern, but today it looks tired, and concrete and seawater spray do not go well together.

 

Through the little town there ran a 'torrente', a largeish stream with little action in the summer, but one that can become quite active when heavy squalls fall on the nearby mountains.

The railway crossed it by a series of short arches, a stub of which you can see on the left.

 

 

 

 

 

What remains of the little viaduct with short arches has been attacked in the interests of modernity, but you can see that it did have some character from the little underpass that remains on the right. Better than the concrete car park and shopping arcade that look so tired near the old station.

 

Behind the camera, so turning round to look inland at the same spot, you can see the new line from 1932, a few hundred yards inland.

There's an EMU at the LH end of the new railway bridge across the 'torrente', which looks not unlike the old one. (now demolished)

Beyond are the hills that can, if heavy rain, cause the 'torrente' to swell considerably.

This is what the original station used to look like:

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stazione_di_Deiva_Marina#/media/File:Stazione_di_Deiva_-_Piazzale_inizio_1900.png

(Use Google translate if any pages are in Italian)

Finally, a last shot onwards towards the south, Framura and the Cinque Terre. Just visible to the right of the orange group of houses, centre left, is a lengthman's house. This marks the entrance to the next tunnel, a short one, which leads to a caravan park. After that the old tunnels are blocked until Framura.

 

Next week, we hope, an update from the L&B track buying vehicle, Exmoor Associates. There's an update meeting on Saturday, which we will attend. What will they have in store for us?

 

 

 

Cinque Terre adventures.

Saturday out with the gang.

A modest gang on Saturday, just six of us. Many regular faces were missing, which was strange. Yet the weather was splendid and the job interesting.

 

 

As we loaded up the tools, 3850 came by with the first train south.

An all black locomotive is tricky to photograph, but it is nice to look at. And it provides variety from green.

 

In the yard was a small pile of point timbers, and one had a message on it, with a smilie.

Wonder what happened there....?

 

We set off for Gotherington, with a kink and some sleepers to replace on the list.

The kink was certainly visible. It was just by skew bridge, and on a curve. An insulated joint here was a point of weakness. There is a plan to replace this with something stronger in the future, so Saturday was just a repair.

First we had to let a train pass, before we could get a line block and start shifting the track.

 

We got the sluing jacks out and set them up as two pairs.

These jacks are the heaviest thing that we have in our equipment, but luckily the truck that brought them wasn't far away. They're like carrying lumps of lead.

Sleeper ends had to be dug out for this, to lessen the resistance.

Despite the small gang - all of us except the cameraman were on the picture - the track did shift back a couple of inches. Success !

Next was 2807 heading south, so we had both our working 2-8-0s out today. One black one, and one green one.

 

It was very nicely framed by the green trees coming round the curve at Skew Bridge yard.

Robel man is ready to go !

 

 

 

 

 

After correcting the kink, all the working Robels were brought out and laid in a line, ready to go. Quite a lift was required here too.

 

 

Lunch was held a few yards away on the platform at the station.

Steve (1), Simon, Bert Ferrule, Steve (2) and Tim sat in the sunshine.

The next job was the replacement of some life expired wooden sleepers between the platforms. These here are quite old, being already second hand when they were laid here to replace the lifted track in the 1990s.

What was interesting here was that these sleepers, unusually for us, were laid with spiked base plates. Spikes are quick to insert but tend to wear loose with friction, and the slow softening of the wood into which they are driven. So it's not a very good system, and wasn't used very long. But they are b*****s to get out. We didn't have the right tool for the job, but got by with a bar and a fulcrum in the form of a keying hammer head.

We also noticed that there are at least two types of spikes used on base plates. One where the spike directly holds down the FB rail (R) and one where it's a reverse Pandrol clip (L). Reverse, in the sense that it goes against our adage of 'Tail on the rail, and you fail', as here the tail is placed on the rail. Weird.

Once the spikes were out, with some difficulty, but extra weight on the bar got us there eventually, we hammered the base plates out sideways, without having to use jacks. Just the toe of the bar to take the strain.

The base plates go for scrap, or can you think of a use for them? We'd be happy to sell you one.

The rail ends are still selling well. Amazing !

Next, 3850 trundled into the station, with the regulator closed. Gotherington is a nice area for photographs, thanks to a number of fine trees, and the station owner keeping his station spick and span.

The train spent longer at the platform than expected. It turns out that Steve saw a dynamo belt flapping round uselessly on its pulley, and alerted the engine crew. It was removed and handed over, and by 4 o'clock we already saw it on a table in the C&W shed.

 

 

 

 

3850 then managed to leave, 10 minutes behind time. This was slowly made up during the day.

Having removed the base plates, we tried to remove the sleeper, but it was stuck, despite all the digging out. It turned out that a stone had worked under the rail, and was jamming it.

 

We brought 7 spare sleepers with us on the Transit, and with a short walk 4 of us managed to bring over two of them for the replacement work. The others were stacked on site, ready for next time.

Because there was no proper ballast under the sleepers here we were forced to pack the new ones by hand, which is quite hard work. 

Just to make sure that they were well supported we got the Robels out, but several times they were reluctant to go into the ground, as there was no ballast to vibrate underneath. This is a consequence of lack of money for fresh ballast when the track was laid by us, years ago.

 

 

Finally, a question.If you look closely at the original Cotswolds stone wall here, you can see two vertical lines cut into it. One behind the fire alarm bell, and one behind the handle of the trolley.

Such grooves were cut into the rough stone to allow something to be screwed to the wall here. On the end of the building this would have been poster boards, but this is under a window, and low down. 

What could it have been?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday at Broadway.

An Indian summer day, with fine sunny weather after early mist.

Neal has been spending much time on the trusses at Toddington, but decided to have a break from drilling holes, and joined us at Broadway.

The front row of blues on the building is almost complete, with half of the fifth course laid. John decided on a change of air, and made a start on the plinth headers.

We have a door frame remaining from 2017, so Neal decided to instal that in the future store room. This will allow us to lay reds around it. In the picture he is trimming it to size.

 

Commercially, the day seemed very busy again, supporting our FD's message a few weeks back that we were trading a bit above budget. Good news.

A newly outshopped locomotive also brings people in.

Here is 3850 running round a morning train, with plenty of steam to show that the morning air is now quite cool.

The low morning sun also allows some fine portrait photographs, with 3850 now back on its train after running round.

 

 

 

 

Setting off provided clouds of steam, with a little hole in the cloud to let you know which engine this was. 

Here is 3850 setting off, past the installed but unused Broadway signals.

By mid afternoon the end door frame was in, and supported by some temporary struts from the main frames.

Neal also prepared the ground with the two other doors for dummy frames, so that we can build around them. The actual joinery work still has to be ordered.

 

During the day John made slow but steady progress with the blue plinth headers along the back, having completed the Honeybourne end. The height of the wall is now such that he no longer needs to wear knee pads to work, a big improvement.

The result at the end of the day was 80 bricks laid, and pointed. We're not quite half way down the back straight. Neal even suggested that we lay out some reds now - wow !

We are running out of sand and cement, so next week should see 'STEVIE' come up to Broadway with 6 bags of sand, and 20 bags of cement. Haul road along the back? We can handle this ourselves. Thank you, STEVIE, and your driver.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Another lovely day, and all 4 Usketeers reported for duty. There was lots of other stuff going on too.

 

Firstly, a quick sit rep of the canopy manufacture. Neal reported that he had been down every day last week. That's motivation, my word.

The result is here to see. 

Two of the 4 trusses are ready, but for their diagonals, which need bending at the end. That might be possible in house, but could also be a specialist job. We'll see if there is room to do it in the loco shed.

 

A third truss is half finished on the left, on the trestles.

 

 

Meanwhile, on the rebuilding of the Toddington stationmaster's chimney, enough imperial bricks for the job have been lent by the Broadway P2 team to do the job. They have been collected, and stacked under the scaffolding - ready to start.

 

 

Early on, there were discussions on top on how to proceed.

The first bricks to lay is a course of blues, ending in a course of plinth headers. Then come the imperial reds.

 

We'll come back to this job later in the day, but for now, back to the Usketeers.

Paul and Dave planned to spend the day correcting the slightly wobbly line of the new post & rail fence, and before doing so, they gave John a lesson on how to prepare lead caps for the uprights. We want our fence to last.

In the lower area the fence line is not straight. This is because when digging post holes, we had to avoid the tree roots of the big pine, and also take care not to touch the power supply cable that was known to run alongside.

Then they were interupted - hey, isn't that....

Dave, Peter, Peter and Paul having a laugh.

Yes, it was their old mates from the PWay team, Peter (1) and Peter (2).

They had been assembling a 12ft piece of track, which will be used during our young engineers weekend, which is planned for 10 days hence. 

We are very keen to recruit more young people, so want to interest them, and make them feel welcome. A whole weekend is dedicated to young engineers on 28th and 29th September. Do come, if you are the slightest bit interested

Then it was back to the job of straightening the fence line. This will be done by inserting spacers between the uprights and the concrete posts.

You can see a spacer inserted here. With the rails put back, it'll be straight again.

 

 

A few last adjustments, and the fence is complete again.

Now it's straight, except for a slight detour round the old pine tree.

We couldn't shift that.

The slight differences in colour are because yours truly wasn't able to give this area a second coat while Paul and Dave were working on it. That'll be for next week then.

After we knocked off, there was one last look at the build of the stationmaster's chimney.

Here they are, having a site meeting on the top of the scaffolding, as 2807 draws in from Cheltenham.

More of a sideways on look here, and you can see that the blue brick plinth is done.

This crop shows exactly where they were, near the end of the day. 

In fact the state of play at the end was that, next to the plinth headers, they also got the first course of reds down. When that has gone off next week, they can start the rest of the chimney with the reds.

The team have left a channel inside the chimney, so as not to preclude a reinstatement of the stationmaster's slate fireplace, which was ripped out and rather brutally skipped in 2011.

 

A look over the fence - Cinque Terre line.

Our jaunt into Italy for 2 weeks was quite exciting really, particularly the second week, which was spent in the Cinque Terre area on the north west coast. We had a base 3km up a cliff, and dropped down to the local station by bus every day to travel along the line and visit the different villages.

In Framura you can see the old tunnel on the left, and the new one on the right.

 

 

The thing to know about the Cinque Terre line, from Sestri Levante to La Spezia, is that it was built as a single line, almost completely in tunnel under a long cliff. It soon became clear that a single line was completely inadequate, and from the 1930s the line was completely rebuilt as double track, leaving the old tunnels mostly to one side.

 

Just north of Framura, you can see a train emerging from a new single line tunnel, while the old one is still in use, but further along it splits off into a gallery at the foot of the cliff, which seems to have been overcome by rock slides.

There is no road along the coast!

Just south of Framura the new double tunnels take over (big concrete wall) while the old track continues over the arches, now as a 6km cycle track.

Cheap restaurant at the bottom of the glass lift, expensive one by the old tunnel mouth on the right.

You could get a hamburger cooked to any degree of rareness that you liked, not possible in the UK. We had one as tartare...

 

 

The cycle path is also almost completely in tunnel, emerging only for stations in open valleys.

However, it is so close to the cliff edge that there are periodic windows, and benches from which to look out.

Here is one of the brief sections not in tunnel, with a palm tree making a useful cycle stand.

The temperature during the week reached 37C, so we were glad to plunge back into the tunnels, which were lovely and cool.

Tiny beaches also appeared from time to time. They are definitely for the locals, you had to know they were there.

Section workers houses also appeared, some converted to holiday residences, and some ruined. You probably need to bring your own water, and arrange for your own electricity supply.

Towards the end of the cycle track the line opened out a little more, before the usable cycle track ended in Levanto, where a low viaduct across town was cut off half way along. It was still used by road traffic, with a steep ramp at one end, and a traffic light.

One cheeky local carved himself a road out of the cliff and had a holiday home half way up. The entrance was in the tunnel, so at some point his car must have driven along the cycle track. We also met a police car with flashing lights, just checking. It's nice to have a police presence.

The original stations have mostly been replaced with newer builds along the new alignment. The old ones often still exist, but some have been converted to flats.

 

 

 

 

We spotted this one as being almost completely original. It still had its awning, and the station clock. 

This is at Monterosso, one of the 5 Cinque terre towns. It's much more open here, with a long beach, so we did not find that as appealing.

Then came an actual train journey along the current operational line. We got out at Vernazza, a beautiful town, with a railway station right in the middle.

It's on a short open section between two tunnel mouths, just 100m of daylight. The main drag (centre left) goes down to the sea, and the station is right on top of it. The open section is so short that most of the station is in narrow tunnels, where modern double deck EMUs, in pairs, stop with just a few feet showing. In the tunnel is where you get out.

Such chaos! We loved it.

 

 

This isn't Oxford circus, the tunnel is only slightly wider than normal, and you have to shuffle along behind the yellow line. Your EMU whizzes past as you queue for the exit among hundreds of visitors.

 

 

 

Here are two pictures to show the length of the open section.

Looking south, towards La Spezia (big port), and...

 

 

 

 

 

Looking north, towards Genoa (also a big port).

Just look at how close to the centre of the village this station is, you can't get any closer than that.

 

 

 

 

 

And is there any other traffic, next to the Cinque terre shuttle for tourists?

Why yes, there is. Bulk trains, container trains, long distance passenger trains, HST sets.....

They all race through the same tunnels, as you shuffle along behind all the other tourists. It's no problem.

 

 

Here's an example of a non-stopper. Not sure what this is, but it's fast. We saw trains labelled Frecciabianca and Frecciaargente (white and silver arrow) and there is a warning message on the tannoy to stay on the narrow strip behind the yellow line. You'd better.

 

 

 

Here's a bunch of people pressed against the wall, in expectation of the next train. You never know what it will be, although the tannoy warns you that it won't stop.

They mostly don't sound their horns (we whistle everywhere on the GWSR) but if you are a railway enthusiast, you know what's coming by the rush of hot air that precedes what's going to burst out of that tunnel mouth.

And there's the next one rushing through.....stand back !

It was thrilling stuff.

The next village, on the next day. Manarola.

That was an interesting one too. Again, the village was in a cleft in the cliffs, and this time there was no room for the station at all. It was moved a bit further along, to the other side of a rock.

The little station building has gone today, and the tunnel doubled.

 

 

 

What hasn't changed is the pedestrian tunnel leading to the town on the other side of the rock. It's still there, and usefully headed: MANAROLA.

 

 

 

 

 

Manarola too is beautiful, but it was spoiled for us by a noisy restaurant playing disco music across the harbour, and huge foreign tour groups that made themselves large across any platform that gave a famous view. Selfies ruled.

Instead, we sought out the outskirts of the village, and climbed up to the less frequented, higher end of the main drag. Here it was clear that the grape harvest was in full swing, and we were intrigued by what looked like a little train puttering along the levels.

 

This is way up, so apologies for the slightly fuzzy image, which is a crop. You can see a little monorail train going along, on a single rail that appeared to be going anywhere it liked. Amazing! It was held up by sticks.

We followed the road higher and higher, parked Mrs. Blogger in some shade (it was very hot) and climbed up a last row of steps.

This is what we found. A double terminus of vineyard monorail, by a car park. The little train with two wagons can carry 16 boxes of freshly picked grapes, and these have been stacked by the road. A lady in a van came to pick up the load, and we said how interesting her little railway was, and how we admired it. Well she didn't, she replied, it was her work. Point taken.

The rails have teeth underneath, and the motive power is a simple Honda engine with a single speed. Notice how it is inclined - these little jobs will climb a 45 degree slope, or go down it, as witnessed in this short little clip:

https://youtu.be/JQV5ibm4aoM?si=Dr2J-aUmP1Tq2mmk

It was apparently filmed by an American, who was not overjoyed by the cliffside descent.

This picture shows the station at Manarola, seen from the rock behind which the town is located. They had to install the station a bit further along the coast, and then you walk back through a tunnel. The train just emerging from (or just entering into, if you like) a tunnel is a loco hauled longer distance express, that doesn't stop, so watch out.

Just to the right of the tunnel mouth is the start of the recently restored Via del Amore, a cliffside path built by the miners that dug the tunnel to the next town round the corner, Riomaggiore.

Riomaggiore was the third Cinque Terre town visited.

 

 

This was another station between two tunnel entrances, but this time double ones, so they were wider.

Nonetheless there was a foreign tourist crush, with little signs, umbrellas or flags held aloft to follow my leader.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a freight train from La Spezia coming through.

In the corner of the tunnel entrance is a lift shaft, through which you can exit the station straight to a higher level.

Down below at platform level, looking the opposite way, other long distance trains rumbled through non-stop, as tourists squeezed along the narrow platforms in the tunnels.

 

An Italian HST set passing through...

 

... and another freight train emerges out of the gloom.

 

 This is the picture that everyone wants to take. You'll need sharp elbows to get past the selfie sticks!