Christmas wishes

We at the signal box project would like to wish you all a very mery Christmas and look forward to a very productive and exciting new year. Not only will we be coming to the end of our closed period, but there have been major changes to the project. We have been redecorating the pavilion, we've opened a cafe for the visitors, we're in the process of assessing our demonstration process, we're delighted about the long awaited return of Cowley bridge junction and we have a big change at the signal box which we will tell you more about early in 2015.

So from all of the members at the box, happy Chrismas and we look forward to seeing you next year!

Preliminary openday dates 7th & 8th of March

You may be thinking to yourself, "It's all very well these signal box people posting on this blog, but I actually want to go and see this project for my self, because I can't believe how amazing it looks!", well your chance may be on its on its way. As of next year (2015), we are into the final stretch of our closed period, but before we re-open for good, we will be opening for two days in March. We plan to be opening on Saturday the 7th and Sunday the 8th of March in association with the Romsey model railway exhibition as usual. However, what makes this even more exciting is that on Friday the 6th of March, it is the 150th anniversary of the Sprat and Winkle Line!!! Therefore, while we are open on the 7th and 8th we will have a few extra displays and we hope to make the experience extra special! Keep your eyes open for more information as it comes out, here is the place to look! Or join our Facebook page to receive live updates!

December "Bun Fight"

Well, the last open (working) day of the year...

I'm not sure where this year has gone and it doesn't seem possible that we have been closed for all this time.

To celebrate the festive season (and any other excuse we could come up with) we had a BBQ along with other goodies people brought in.



Jamie cooked some bacon on the BBQ and the resulting bacon rolls were rapidly consumed and very much enjoyed.

Plenty of standing around drinking tea and eating sweet or savoury nibbles appeared to be the order of the day.

Some work was also carried out during the day, believe it or not.  The seat for one of the rail trolleys had a grey undercoat as did some other bits and pieces.  The lean-to had a thorough clean and tidy up.  I carried out some more painting on the ceiling area in the heritage centre and several other odds and ends were done by various people

Some important discussions and future planning also happened during the day.

The heritage centre refurbishment is well underway, with the ceiling almost complete and the majority of the preparations finished.  We hope to "gallop" on with this in the new year.

I would like to wish everyone reading this a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year.

Dave