Packing (in some...) Heat! And wet, and wind.....

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, but not too much to report.
Here is a run down of the recent work we acheived today.

Following the resleepering of the point south of Parkend, we received a message from our S&T dept asking could we do a spot more packing on a few of the sleepers towards the nose of the point into order for them to get the FPL to fit its brand new stretcher bar. This was achieved with the help of our trusty generator and the dreaded Kango hammers! It will now be down the S&T to refit the linkages for the FPL. Our signalman on duty here will be thankful, no more clipping the points every time!

Packing in the rain.

Emergency ear protection had to be pressed into use briefly due to us leaving the ear defenders at Norchard. While these were fetched yours truly used the ever helpful hanky method...

 It doesn't go all the way through, honest....
(Not to be *actually* done.)

This was completed fairly quickly and allowed us to get loaded back onto the Geismar and head down to Whitecroft to rectify what we thought might be a wheelburn on a rail within the platform limits. Further information told us it was a 'squat'. This is a flaw within the rail structure that doesn't show itself until the rail itself has worn down. This can result in the running surface breaking delaminating and in extreme cases cause a fracture. This has been re-enforced by clamping a pair of fishplates either side of the squat with heavy clamps to take some of the load. This combined with the 10mph speed limit within the station limits will enable us to get a replacement together in the next week or so and replace the whole 45ft length. This will be an interesting task! Sorry no photos of this unfortunately.

Next it was down to Harbour Road crossing in order to do even more packing. Again we were following up a report that the rodding responsible for locking the wicket gates and Lydney Junction was binding on the underside of the flatbottom rail section of the crossing. Due to the rodding being unable to be dropped any more and thus being an S&T issue, the rails had to come up slightly via jacking and packing. So back to the screw jacks and Kangos.

The ballast here is a lot finer than elsewhere on the line so it packs a treat. Also the sun came out!

Out final task for the day was track down a bar that had fallen off the trolley on our jaunt south from Parkend. We never spotted it (We're sure it'll turn up when we least expect it...) however we did spot this.

A hole has opened up in the ballast roughly 40 feet south of the Whitemead Crossing at Parkend, We are hoping that this is just a hitherto unknown drain left over from the Severn and Wye days that has decided to end its days. Keith managed to insert his arm up to his shoulder without touching the bottom so this will bear further investigation. This may result in digging out the drain and reinforcing it, or if its derelict simply packing it tight to take the load. Either way it doesn't appear to be interfering with the trackbed itself but will require looking into. (Ho ho...) Watch this space for further details!

Finally we would like to say  thank you to our newest member of the team, Aron for his work today, and James from the shop, for coming out and lending a hand too. Both had a treat of driving the Geismar under strict instruction of course!

Until the next post!