In a rare moment, the operating team has sent the Sheffield sand wagon down to Gosport where it has returned ready to service the fleet at Sheffield Loco.

After many years with a plain Masonite wall behind Sheffield Victoria Station, we recently removed the wall, cut 24 arches and reclad the entire wall with Slaters stone plastikard and inset stone (cardboard) lintels. Per modern scenic standards, a copious amount of putty was used to hide any joins resulting in a much more realistic wall that looks strikingly like those ready made Noch walls you can buy "off the shelf".

The red brick walls behind Sheffield at Leicester and Rugby were also reclad as part of the upgrade.

As with many activities on this railway, this project was a victim of scope creep. Both ends of Platforms 4 and 5 were relaid to improve the track geometries. This required one of the electrification masts to be extended for the second time!

Pictures of the new wall and track are below. The last photo shows the improved wall/viaduct.tunnel mouth for the Rugby to Leicester mainline (new wall and pratt truss support) and Huddersfield line (tunnel). This job was necessitated by recent improvements to Nottingham's walls (previous blog post).