Rosewood Railway News (Sep 2007):

Operations
After the excitement of 720 in steam in July, August was a quiet month with just over 50 passengers taking a trip on Red Fred at the end of the month Running Day. The rate of progress of work on 720 (see below) may see it debut on passenger trains in November or December which means you have just 2 or 3 months left to ride Red Fred on a Running Day.

Restoration
Work is progressing well on 720. The cab roof has been finished by Colin Stokes, Owen Betts and Chris Banks following the instructions of Eric Marggraf who has been unable to attend Rosewood due to ill health. Eric built the frame of the roof and the ventilator which goes on top. Phil has connected the blow-down and scum cock to the silencer, bent and fitted the air pipe from the compressor to the main reservoir and recalibrated the steam pressure gauge. He has also cast, machined and fitted new piston glands to the piston rods as the old ones were leaking too much steam. More paint for the loco has been purchased from a grant from Ipswich City Council and Chris Banks and Jacob Cash will be responsible for painting the loco. Chris and Jacob also cleaned out the tender tank removing a drum load of rust and mud. The feedwater is now clean and free of sediment.
Gerardus Mol from Canberra has donated the original brass number plates from No 720. Apparently his father had purchased them from QR at the end of the steam era. This is a very generous gift from Gerardus as these plates are quite valuable and are even more so as they came from 720. It is planned to cast replicas for 720 and keep the originals in a safe place until they can be displayed in our Library one day.
Owen Betts, John McDonald, Colin Stokes and Teddy Hancox have been sanding and painting inside the Guard’s compartment of CLV1566.

Maintenance
Russell Watkins, Stephen Leach, Waren Lukritz, Chris Banks, Jacob Cash and Trevor Mussig have all assisted with track work over the last month. By the end of Sunday 23 September, work had finished replacing sleepers in both check-rail sections. We are now waiting for the parts for the steel sleepers to arrive so the other sections can be repaired. This work is being done to ensure the track is up to standard for C17 720. However, we have just about exhausted our supply of timber sleepers so Russell is obtaining prices for new ones as further sleepers will require replacement over the next 6-12 months.

Projects
Member Graham Waghorn has provided drawings for a carriage shed for the Railway. Russell Watkins is currently looking at a site at Kunkala to see if we can fit a shed there. Initially we will need one 33-36m long to house the two restored vans. Each additional car will need 16m of cover but to cover all cars we will need about 100m which is a long shed!

Greg Cash
Acting Manager

Lifting the new rail into position	A view of the crossing	A view of the finished product
		Photos : J. Field
The finished crossing only needs connection at the far end	Russell, Neil & Trevor admire a hard-days work
		Photos : C. Banks (13/8/06)
Further rail replacement down the line.	Steve hammers the stop sign in at the days end