Happy New Year, and the project begins!

Another update! I shall attempt to update a little more often now we have got back into the swing of things down ihere in the deepest darkest Forest.

As mentioned we are about to embark on building a FB point at Parkend that will be placed much further down the running line. This will result in a smoother ride into the platform and more importantly provide a surplus point to allow for the re-connection of the Goods Yard and the remnants of Marsh sidings. You can never have too much siding space!

Steelwork has been on site for a few months. Weather was a bit nicer then...

The above picture also shows where the turnout is going. The toe of the point will be placed just after Whitemead Crossing looking in this direction. (The foot crossing in on the far right.)

This has lead to us getting a delivery of brand spanking new crossing timbers in the wee hours of Monday. Its all become real at long last! many thanks to our stalwart member Keith for turning up in the rain to sign for them!

All arrived and ready for shifting on what I have been laughably calling the 'Contractors Railway.'
(Pic - A. Davies)

Thanks to the efforts of the Parkend Gang, these sleepers were shifted wholesale by trolley down to the site all ready for placement this Thursday. Needless to say we owe the chaps a few beers as they also helped to get the aforementioned 'Contractors Track into a position to not drop a loaded trolley....

Rated for 125mph running maybe? Keith, Huw and Ollie prep for cutting a rail end in order to flyplate it. Hand tramming only down here methinks.

Also the track above is rough and ready and most definitely not in any fit state for anything but a hand trolley, it makes life far easier in moving the timbers!

Another update on its way!

Wooden sleepers available.

As has been alluded to, we are very amenable to people acquiring the multitude of timber sleepers which we have dotted around the railway for a donation. These are generally not good enough to be placed in the running line and are left over from various relaying jobs we have done over the years.
     Combined with the selling of broken and massively life expired chairs and bolts for scrap, it is a small but vital income to our gang that keeps us from having to depend too heavily on the 'Main Pot' if you will.

If anyone is interested in acquiring any number of timbers, please don't hesitate to get in contact with us, either through this site or through the main shop where we can pick up any messages and get in contact.

Pricing is £20 per sleeper, and unfortunately we are unable to deliver. Small amounts can be acquired relatively quickly, but for larger numbers we require a bit of lead time.

Our newest recruit helping strip the ironwork off used sleepers. (Pic by E Dyer)

*Due to the law, we cant sell them specifically for use in the garden*

Twist fault and other excitement!

Another late update to the goings on here at the DFR. Sadly due to work commitments, I am not there as often as I would like, so photos and tales of derring-do trickle back to me slowly!

Firstly, we had the fortune to have parts of our running line surveyed by a Geirsmar track reading trolley as part of out openess to companies wanting to use our track for training purposes. Unfortunately however, a *slight* twist fault was discovered immediately north of Lydney Town Crossing. Never fear you might say, for we have a tamper in the training at roughly the same time. The only downside was the need to have the crossing closed for upwards of 20 minutes to get the the track leveled mechanically, and as the main road is fairly busy this was a definite no-no.

So out with the track jacks and Kango hammers it is then! Photos courtesy of Sam Bolingbroke.

 Preliminary jacking and leveling with the gauge.

In preparation for some severe graft. Lots of voids to fill!

We believe that drop on this rail had come about due the dying and the subsequent cutting back of the large leylandii trees that were adjacent to the crossing. When the roots rotted we believe they gave the ground enough 'give' to allow the rail to settle. This was solved within a few hours, but the jacking and packing of concrete sleepers is hard work due the necessary force to bring both rail and sleeper to height with hand jacks.

Onwards to Whitecroft. Regular readers may have picked up that the running line though the platform was ever-so slightly too close to the platform face. (By roughly 35mm) Originally a plan was formulated to shift the lot over the course of a working day with bars and Duff-Norton jacks acting on the platform face. However, some bright spark realised that we had a large tamper type machine visiting and this sort of thing was right up its street!

The tamper approaches Whitecroft.

Our resident P/way guru John directs operations.

A short video of the tamper doing it job.

Another job that has come to our attention is on the pointwork at Middle Forge. A report of rough joint made its way to me on the last day of the Day Out With Thomas. Needless to say it was after the last train of the day and black as your fathers hat. However enlisting the help of one the guards and the newest P/way member, we set off to check it out. A couple of tweaks with the spanner and a check by Bardic Lamp put any doubts to rest. Nevertheless it was reported for handpacking ASAP.

A bit of damp handpacking!

Although this joint has been packed tight and stabilised, we will have to replace the offending sleeper at some point in the near future. It will either be a 24ft direct replacement, or a pair of shorter ones cut to fit. This is yet to be decided.

One finally job to be achieved however, and one would argue that at this time of year it is the most important job. It is of course the erecting and decorating of the railways Christmas tree! P/way? More like tree/way!

Merry Christmas to all our readers and followers!

More heavy equipment

Yet again we have benefitted from our connections within the rail industry and in recent days we have had a visit from a pair of newer RRV 360's. These are cracking bits of kit and we cannot emphasis how useful they are! We do have one at the railway, it currently lives at Parkend, but its awaiting work. I digress....
These two differ slightly from the previous one that visited us in that the drive to the rail wheels is a hydrostatic system rather than a friction method. This works better on lines like our where some of the sidings that it ventured into need judicious sanding to get anything like a good bit of grip.

Due to the necessity to give their drivers a good bit of training, they were kept busy courtesy of Rob, who was lucky enough to spend most of the week helping them. Sadly yours truly was working all week....

The RRV's prepping for the day with their all-sorted kit in the car park at Norchard. (Pic - Rob Alpin) 

 RRV being put to good use shifting knackered pointwork just 

south of Whitecroft under the watchful eye of Keith. (Pic - Rob Alpin)

On  of the more pressing uses the RRV's got put to, was the removing of two wagons from a siding at Parkend. This was disconnected a few years ago when the life-expired double slip was removed from the Marsh siding connection. The wagons were originally in the goods siding behind the station before being hauled by winch along some very temporary track to the buffer stops to keep them out of the way. 

Wagons and temporary track in the summer. (Pic - E.Dyer)

And from the other end. (Pic - E.Dyer)

As is usually the case though, things put out of the way often get in the way again a few years down the line. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we are intending to reconnect the Marsh and goods sidings. However to do this, the track before the bufferstops needs to be relaid, and various earth work relocated. In order to do this, and have space to build the point we previously brought up from the junction, we have to dismantle the track currently in place. And in order to do that, the wagons need shifting...

If only someone had some lifting kit....

Both the wagons shifted out of the way on a grim old day. (Pics - Rob Alpin)

They were positioned on the running line, and the very friendly chaps in the shunting gang kindly stuck them in the long siding at Whitecroft. If you know anybody who fancies taking on a restoration project, please get in contact!

Wagons on the line, and out of our hair. (Pic - Rob Alpin)

Now the siding is empty, we can get cracking on the dismantling. This is always a fun job, but does feel like a step back. It will great when we get the point work installed and the siding reinstated properly. Dismantling will start to take place when we have completed out current task of securing roughly 70-odd surplus sleepers that are not good enough install, but good enough to sell. 

The story behind that is that someone bought a property on a disused line near Hereford, and on discovering that it originally used to be a halt, thought it would be nice to rebuild it as a feature in their garden. We were approached and asked if we could supply the timber. Needless to say we jumped at it! 

The proceeds from this will be going towards the hardwood crossing timbers for the new point we will be building. The timbers are about to be ordered and building will commence as soon as we can. Actual installation will *hopefully* be a working week in January. Watch this space! It had better not damn snow...

Dogfish Photo Charter!

Due to most of the work at the moment being of a regular ticking over of tweaking this and that, and the day to day maintenace, its been a bit quiet in the world of p/way this month.

Until yesterday (The 7th..)

As you may have read in the blog before we have been getting some of our Dogfish into a state that can be described as usable. This was for a Photo Charter organised by Mike Tyack. For it we did something a bit different and actually dropped some ballast for the cameras and ploughed it too. All with our gang in period 1950's kit!

Safe to say the day was a success for the photographers and for us too!

Anyway, enough natter and here are some pictures!

That bloody rain though....

 Bit wet...

 Chatting to the driver

 5541 doing sterling work

 Stone! Tons of it!

 Yours truly and Rob Alpin. 'Oi, you're bloody late again!'

Yours truly having fun, honest!

 The gang!

Pictures taken by the photographers themselves are being loaded onto Flickr and can be found here https://www.flickr.com/groups/2873736@N23/pool/with/22253668163/

Rail change.

In the previous entry I alluded to the plan to change two rails at Whitecroft and to that end dropped off two at the site with this in mind.

Sadly no plan survives contact with us, and we neglected to notice that the rails were a *smidgen* too short. This was however a mixed blessing as the rails we brough up were 95lb rails, and the running line at this point if still on 85lb rail. Conversion fishplates are a bit thin on the ground here...

Never fear, we removed a length of 85lb rail that was precisely 45ft long from above Whitecroft crossing and manhandled to where it was needed. Oddly enough despite its auspicious start, this job went like clockwork. This left plenty of time for our NR trained volunteer Courtney to show us the intricacies of the rail saw!

Courtney showing Keith how to cut up the old rail.

 The new rail in situ and the old rail being prepared for cutting. (Pic by Rob Alpin.)

 Notice the level of wear between the rails.This will be rectified with a rail grinder. (Pic by Rob Alpin.)

Once again, the shunting gang came to the rescue to help us test it by running the 08 over at line speed for this section and safe to say, abslutely nothing shifted. Always a good sign!

Apologies for the lack of photos on this job but everyone forgot to take them! Myself included. They will be added should any more materialise.

The RRV Cometh!

Last week we were very lucky to have a visit by a 360 RRV and its trailer belonging to Quattro. Even better than supplied an operator. Even luckier than that, we had the pair of them for a whole week! You'd better believe we made use of them.

One RRV with flail attached.

One of the first task that was put to the RRV was that of making a dent in the lineside undergrowth that it has been impossible to get a tractor based flail to. In this end we have flailed the banks above Norchard High Level on the way to Whitecroft as well as the approach to the High Level from Middle Forge. 

Looking towards Whitecroft.

This has improved the view of the line from both of the Norchard platforms. We have also managed to flail the embankment above Lydney Crossing. This has been a bug bear for a while and it has resulted in the sighting for the crossing being greatly improved. A similar clearance had been achieved for the foot crossing at Middle Forge greatly improving safety. We have also cleared the massively overgrown siding that is connected to the Middle Forge Junction. This siding is rarely used but it seemed prudent to clear it while we had the means to do it easily! This flailing took a bit longer that anticipated due to hydraulic problems and the need to have a couple of guys poking around in the bushes to make sure the flail didn't hit any bits of steel and the like.

The clearance of Middle Forge.

On the third day we trekked down to the junction with the trailer to start shifting the quantity of concrete F27 sleepers our gang chipped in to buy from NR from their relaying efforts on the Ebbw Vale branch.

Sleepers arriving from Crumlin a few months ago.(By Rob Alpin)

The plan is to use them to relay the running line between the Bypass Crossing and the bracket signal on the approach to Lydney Junction in the near future. To aid this, our valiant shunting crew emptied the 'junk siding', *cough cough* I mean the Spur Siding alongside the running line at the point. We plan to use it as a base to swing the concrete sleepers into position once the existing line is removed. However, in order to do that, more flailing!

RRV in the bushes. (With apologies to Dian Fossey)
There is track in there somewhere...

It made it to the bufferstops!

Once the siding had been fully cleared, shifting the sleepers could start. These were loaded onto the trailer that came with the RRV and dragged up the siding.

Keith and a load about to depart.

This task was made interesting as we were moving loads in between the service trains. This made our signalman sing for his supper with some unusual moves! Needless to say it all pulled off without a hitch.

Sleepers about to be laid out. The black roll of material is
anti-weed matting. We laid the sleepers out on this to prevent

us loosing the stacks in undergrowth should it take a while to

get around to using them.

The sleepers were spaced into stacks roughly on track panel apart to aid the moving of them when relaying commences.

Something else that was a benefit of working on a running day was the possibility of some interesting overtaking shots. This was taken while running in to the East Loop while the trains ran into the West Loop.

Once the sleepers had been spread out along the length of the spur siding, we turned our attention moving some pointwork up to Parkend in preparation for the connection of the goods sidings. Our ever helpful shunter gang met us at the junction with their 08 shunter and a couple of bogie bolsters. Moving these parts has been something we have been meaning to do for a while but lack of heavy lifting kit has prevented this. In this regard the RRV was a godsend.

Flat bottom points laid out and ready for loading.

As you can see Sam was excited about finally getting everything on the move.

Deep discussions with yours truly in the background.

In addition to the pointwork, two lengths of rail were acquired to take up and leave at Whitecroft to replace the stretch of rail with a squat on it.

Any rumours of a conversion to two foot gauge are grossly exaggerated...

Once we reached Parkend, the switch and stock rails were laid out of sleeper off-cuts at regular intervals to prevent sagging while the search for funds for a complete set of new hardwood timbers goes on.

In addition to shifting p/way kit, we dug out and shifted a few gantry signals that have been lurking in the bushes by Lydney Junction signal box. They have been waiting to be moved for a good few years and we thought we would do S+T a favour.

These are relics from Walnut Tree Junction and Maesycwmmer.
Hopefully they will be relocated at Parkend soon!

Loading up! (Photo from Aron Stenning)

This weeks work could not have been achieved without the generosity of Quattro to use our line for training, or without those who pitched up to help, be it a day or two, or all week. Something we learned however is that when our own RRV has finished being overhauled, we will be damned nigh unstoppable!

Many thanks to Rob, Courtney, and Aron for supplying the pictures. Apologies I haven't marked all the photos with whose are whose, I can't remember who did what...