Those who aren't "in the know" might think that the Railway goes to sleep when we finish Santa Services and wakes up 6 weeks later for "Thomas" ®, only to lapse back into a snooze until Easter comes around. However, the amount of work done behind the scenes is just as much in most departments, running or not. For Permanent Way things move at a pace when we have unrestricted access to the track, and this closed season we relayed 900ft of track between Cranbrook Rd Level Crossing and Tenterden Home Signal. For a lot of the time the weather was appalling with rain coming at us horizontally on wind blowing from Siberia. The uniqueness of the P.Way team is that we don't care about the weather as long as we can have a good laugh and get the job done. Rain, heatwave, ice and snow do not dampen our spirits (the rain DID dampen our clothes)- as long as the Teapot is within reach. As a result of the relay, the track is a beautiful ride, something to be proud of. We saw some old faces back with us once again, as well as a couple of newer ones.
Other departments take advantage of the lull in traffic to make maintain the carriages, wagons and locos, refurbish station areas and generally get ready for the first day of traffic.
We look forward to welcoming new customers in 2012 as well as many of our older ones who come back year after year.
