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Latest News: Archive
August 2007
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Latest News: Archive
August 2007
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By Owen Stratford and Trevor Brackpool.
P Way were having a midweek foray down the line. 192 sleepers were ready and waiting on the tench and flatrol. We were grateful to have a good sized mid-week gang. Having negotiated the worksite for the bridge-strengthening at Whinburgh, we started dropping sleepers off from Whinburgh Trout Farm, stopping once we reached Hardingham. This left a few remaining as the bundles come in packs of 16, so these were taken to Wymondham. Having emptied the wagons, we then refilled them all again. The scrap sleepers were collected at Crownthorpe and delivered to Yaxham for disposal. We also picked up more firewood, and delivered it to a customer. More scrap and rubbish was collected along the line and we also collected concrete posts and some other spares for returning to the yard in Dereham. Finally, once back in Dereham, the remaining gear on the wagons was unloaded so that the flatrol can be temporarily taken out of traffic to have its deck replaced.
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Newly-restored point rodding stools. 10th August 2007. Photo: Owen Stratford |
Today saw us in Dereham yard, continuing to prepare signalling equipment. A good start was made on building a ground frame. We had a 5 lever base which was seized. This was stripped, cleaned and oiled before reassembling the bearings. We also recovered 3 levers a few months ago and these along with the quadrant plates were fitted, leaving two empty spaces to fill once we have found suitable parts. The quadrants from another frame required some adjustment before they fitted.
Meanwhile, further rodding bases were prepared for installation. This involves cutting off seized bolts and broken A-frames, and replacing them with complete components. The whole rodding run will require about 30 bases, of which 20 are now ready for installation.
We returned to the Wymondham Sewage Works today to tackle the last sleeper changing here. The final 27 were completed and the ends backfilled. Summer has finally arrived with a vengeance and the heat was making up for lost time!
There was a Nenta Railtour to Weymouth today. As a result, P Way was down to three people. With insufficient people to change sleepers, we worked through the back filling of the previous batch of sleepers at the Wymondham sewage works. Roland has been making steady progress on this during the week and we joined him on the first train. We worked from the north end of the embankment, tolerating the hot humid weather, and managed to work through around one quarter of the job.
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Changing sleepers at Garvestone. 25th August 2007. Photo: Owen Stratford |
We started to install point rodding stools at the south end of the loop in Dereham today. We have worked out how to install these to get the required compensation for thermal expansion and also in a manner that will permit us to set the points up around the existing ground frames and then change them over to the signal box later. There is an added complication that the route of the rodding has to dog-leg across the track in order to fit around the existing trackwork. Eleven holes were dug and the stools placed in them, for fettling and aligning in a couple of weeks. We then went to pick up some vertical cranks that we have purchased for the signal box.
A small P Way crew started the job of resleepering at Garvestone. This next batch runs north from the crossing up to the Trout Farm at Whinburgh. We made a good start and managed to change 29, although the rain was not helping much.
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The new rodding run. 26th August 2007. Photo: Owen Stratford |
We had eight people out in the P Way gang today and returned to Garvestone. The work picked up from the footpath crossing from last week and we continued working towards the bridge. The weather had decided to transform back into summer which made it rather hard going. We soldiered on and changed a further 48, shading ourselves at every available tree. This section has a fair number of apple trees, and they were almost perfectly ripe. Needless to say, we had to sample each one in turn as we passed. I am sure that there are a lot of old varieties here that you can't buy any more. 38 sleepers are left for the last day.
Two weeks ago we dug some holes for point rodding stools. Today we were back in Dereham installing the first part of the rodding run. 12 stools were placed in the holes and packed to level and alignment. The channel was also put onto the rollers and fishplated together. We also gathered the necessary end connections together to ensure that we had all of the parts that we needed. This has taken us to around half way between the two points which are to be connected together. There is then about the same distance again to reach the signal box.
By Gary Hall and Matt Goodrum.
We gathered together around 8:30 and headed south. Two people stopped along the way and started a fire before continuing further down to continue brush cutting. The other two continued to bridge 1706 carrying all their equipment to conduct drain maintenance. An inspection of previous work has found a definite improvement. Drainage from the bridge deck was now going down the drain, and this has now washed this section clear. These catch pits have also gone down to their proper level through a pipe of unknown destination.
Two of us went to North Elmham to clear a blockage north of the crossing. This was quickly dealt with and a survey south of the crossing was conducted. We located a French drain that was completely full and in a lot of cases invisible. After some time we finally located the end. We had no means to mark it so we decided to count the sleepers on the way back. This came to a total of 666 sleepers. We have now nicknamed this the devil's drain, and it will take devilish hard work to clear.
A fairly busy week at County School has seen several changes take place. The most obvious change is that the old wooden decked crossing has been replaced with a tidy tarmac surface. This work was completed by contractors who were laying a telephone cable under our line.
Sadly the contractors seem to have not fully understood their brief, as they also removed the pedestrian crossing between the platforms - and removed all the recovered sleepers from site. As a result a temporary crossing has had to be constructed using some scrap timbers salvaged from the firewood pile. The level crossing gates were also further damaged during this work, along with a number of other issues, which all combine to add a few new tasks onto our "to do" list.
The signal box locking room has been fitted with a very well-made door, which has been primed ready to be painted in the near future. A start has also been made on removing the fibreboard that had been used to line the ceiling.
By Roy Malyon
The fence between the stables and the ditch through Dereham Station has been revamped for security reasons. This fence, with 10 strands of wire for most of its length, used over a mile and a half of new wire and 250 posts, and replaces a very battered fence which did not exist in places. Hopefully it will act to deter trespass into the yard from the eastern boundary and for this reason its height has been increased by well over a foot.
The next stage is to improve the area nearest Norwich Road. We will make new gate posts in a slightly re-aligned position to allow better access for lorries, fix the repaired gates, erect new metal fencing nearby, and tidy up the fence beside the road towards the stables.
There has been a long-standing problem with flooding at Yaxham after heavy rain, which we have fixed by digging a new ditch alongside the track. This major project has taken huge steps forward in the last week with troughing being positioned near the level crossing, a hole 20" by 11" high being cut in the concrete catch-pit, and the relief channel, dug last month, being extended to directly reach the outfall ditch. The relief channel is nearly a quarter of a mile long and took a day and a half to dig with a JCB.
The seven members who dug by the level crossing gate in the pouring rain on Wednesday 22nd August, followed by the group on Saturday 25th, achieved great results and the effects of the work need to be monitored. Those there during a downpour realise the sheer volume of water that pours off the road, flooding the level crossing and track bed on both sides of the level crossing to rail height. The next stages are: sifting the spoil piles near the gate to reclaim ballast, tipping the spoil beside the adjacent private car-park to form a bank, and removing the silt from near the sleepers and replacing it with ballast.