Timbers! And a soggy bed....

Apologies for the few updates on here to those who follow us. Life has been intervening for the chaps who throw updates on here. However, we have another for you delectation!

Thursday saw us working in the glorious sunshine at Parkend on the set of points entering the station limits from the south. It was a little earlier than expected for us to working at the is end of the line. (The next big job we will be cracking on with as has been alluded to in the past is that of reconnecting and relaying the pointwork leading in to the goods yard.

However things are rarely so well planned in real life!

Due to an S+T issue, we pitched in to help, and on investigation discovered that the sleepers of this point  were a little bit ripe. Luckily it was spotted and emergency tiebars were deployed in the usual fashion to hold the gauge until it was possible to get the last of our spanking new point timbers up from the junction for installation this Thursday.

It was discovered that the leaking watertank in the embankment above the track had been leaking for years, something that has been rectified. Unfortunately this resulted in a rather soggy bed. This combined with the hard packed ash ballast underneath the stone that remains from when the railway was working succeeded in keeping most of the sleepers decidedly damp and ths creating an ideal situation for rot! A new drain is planned along the foot of the embankment which is hoped will solve any waterlogging issues.

Essentially it was very straightforward job of sleeper changing here, lot of jacking, digging, sliding, and belting (Judicious use of Gord with 'Big Bertha' here). A basic job overall but with loads of musclepower being deployed and anyone who has had to pull back ballast for any length of time will sympathise.

However, a brief word with our head of Civil Engineering and all round good egg and powerhouse, Mr Jason Shirley resulted in not only the ballast ends for the sleepers to be replaced cleared quickly and easily with his 360 digger, but it was discovered we could use said digger to extract the rotten sleeper quickly and easily as well as using it to push the new one in. Needless to say it saved a serious amount of blood. sweat, tears and swearing.

  Ballast shifting made easy.

 Tiebars, new sleeper, and those infernal screw jacks!

A practically complete job, until we buy a few more timbers....

Apologies for the sepia-esque quality to the photos, my camera phone is held together with sellotape...