James Race looks in disbelief at the destruction of the of the track that we left, point work that had taken so many hours and days, even weeks to build. Due to a lack of proper funding by the museum (I am told) the track that the STCMR put down was only suitable for fishplates and spacer bars. The last of the usable point work was removed by a STC Director who seems to have had no vague idea of just what he was destroying, but all traces of the Ashton's it seems had to go, except the £15,000 railway shed of course that was possibly going to make a valuable workshop at the time for the museums vehicle restorer.  The aluminium rail stacked behind James was eventually weighed in for scrap without any realisation of the fact that it was reusable at Sandtoft or for other miniature railways. The points in the picture were for the No 2 Platform at Haxey Halt see drawing below.

Above: Never again were trains going to legally carry passengers on these flimsy useless tracks (due to lack of funding by the museum I am told). We realised as soon as we saw the first short section being put down by the Sandtoft Transport Centre Miniature Railway group that it was totally unsuitable and should have never been constructed using such inadequate materials. No way would it receive an insurance certificate so why the remaining track that we had left and was insured was removed is beyond comprehension. Up to the weekend before one of the STC managers decided to allegedly "throttle" one of junior members we were carrying out a maintenance programme of checking and renewing 250 sleepers and replacing 4 lengths of vandalized rail. It had been said the rail we had used was worn out by one of the tour guides who gave the visitors to the museum after we had left. The only thing that was worn out was the non-stop insults against us. It was in no way worn out as in 1996 new rail was laid. Even the rail put down between 1983--1986 was still in good condition. Our tracks, signals and rolling stock had in 1998 been passed and approved by retired British Rail inspectors who at the time visited many other railways. There was no way that the rail in the picture above was ever going to suitable for public use. There were no sleepers to help stabilise the track into the ballast only spacer bars at the time the photograph was taken, though a few were added later added after an insurance inspection.  According to an article that caused much displeasure to the STCMR group in a bus preservation news feature, a much better railway was being rebuilt by a person with qualifications in railway engineering. Absolute rubbish, one of our members with a very dry sense of humour gave the new railway the initials of "KRR".

Below: Sandtoft Central Station showing the tracks that we put down and passed the inspection. Our late member Rose Hawksworth is seen tending to the flowers and plants in the boarder next to the tracks. After we ceased our railway operations in May 2000 unfortunately Rose was jeered and laughed at by a group of members of the museum in November 2000 STC A.G.M. just because she did not know some detail about trolleybuses. Rose knew her gardening, fund raising and how to spotlessly clean the toilets, but of course the sneering heartless members conveniently forgot the wonderful work she did to help the whole of the museum not just the railway. The final insult to Rose and her family was that the then editor of the STC members newsletter "Sandtoft Scene" in the Obituary spelt her name wrongly after she had died. Never has this mistake happened before or since so I believe.

Photograph by Martin Hulks

Left: No shortage of sleepers here on this section of vandalised track.  On most of the rail joints a much larger sleeper was being used to further improve the stability of the track. However we could not make it vandal proof from one of the alleged vandals at the museum.
Below: New ballast, rail and sleepers for the new passing loop at Sandoft Central in 1996