|
Latest News: Archive
December 2009
|
|
|
Latest News: Archive
December 2009
|
By Trevor Brackpool and Owen Stratford.
P Way had the pleasure of a nice dry and sunny day today in order to continue working at Thuxton. Today's job was to set the expansion gaps on the cess rail of the loop on the north end. The Works Train had been shunted to the south end on Friday in preparation. We worked our way up the loop, de-keying each rail in turn and pushing them to the correct position before greasing and refitting the fishplates and re-keying the rail. Three rail ends required trimming in order to remove the lead that builds up as you pass around the inside of a curve. With the task completed, we also spaced the sleepers on a couple of track panels, before moving on to aligning the track. We set up jacks every 5th sleeper and worked through towards the platform, having also ensured that the 6ft dimension and platform offset were compatible.
Barry, Trevor and Owen started off in the rain at Thuxton, cutting rail offcuts to length in order to make six lintels for the signalbox windows and door. With this achieved, we trimmed the last rail on the loop by the level crossing, before completing yesterday's task of sleeper spacing and keying up the rails.
The P-Way gang spent the day filling in the sleepers that we've changed near Yaxham. There are quite a few more to change in this section, after which we can make a start on the ones in Whinburgh Cutting.
 |
Shovelling ballast out of the yard access turnout. 19th December 2009. Photo: Owen Stratford |
The whole of East Anglia was covered by heavy snowfall with around 15cm in Dereham and so understandably, PW turnout comprised only of people from the immediate Dereham area. A couple of us went out on the first train in case of fallen trees or obstruction, but fortunately there was nothing of note to obstruct the line. We also cleared snow from around the points at Dereham. The gang then spent the morning digging out ballast from the yard entrance turnout which will be resleepered in the coming weeks. In the afternoon, most of the team went off for a ride to warm up, whilst the morning travellers moved a heap of ash ballast.
More snow had fallen overnight. We started off the day by clearing the points yet again in order to swap locos on the train after one had failed and frozen solid. We then attended to the footpath at Hall Lane crossing. The north side had already been done and we needed to complete the south side before the road gets re-tarmacked. We cleared snow and ice build up from around the crossing before starting on the deck. The old tired deck was unscrewed and taken away. We cleared out a buildup of muck from underneath before cutting replacement sleepers to length and installing them. The edge ones were notched to clear the chairscrews and then screwed down with the remaining ones in the 4ft being spiked down. It was then time to call it a day as it was unbelievably cold!
Today was our annual post-Christmas vegetation bash, and the area that we had selected for this year was the area of lineside to the immediate north of Garvestone Level Crossing. There is an original PW hut here built out of old sleepers and is one of only two to survive on the line. The other is at Kimberley and is on a neighbour's property and in a much worse condition. We therefore decided that his was a noteworthy feature to expose from the undergrowth and will add a bit of lineside interest for the passengers. A secondary aim was to clear the encroaching scrub on the approach to the level crossing in the same area. We had a turnout of seventeen people which was most welcome. With two chainsaw operators and a healthy sized gang, we soon cracked on with the task at hand and had the hut exposed and three bonfires on the go by lunchtime. After lunch, the focus moved onto clearing the blackthorn thicket working south and the objective of the day was achieved just before the sunset. We also had the pleasure of the company of a very friendly flock of sheep in the next field that came over to see what we were doing and seemed incredibly tame, enjoying nibbling anything that came close to the fence and were not bothered by either us or the noise of the saws.
 |
 |
PW hut at Garvestone. 28th December 2009. Photo: Owen Stratford |
Talking to the locals. 28th December 2009. Photo: Barney Stratford |
By Matt Goodrum and Toby Rawlings.
Due to the wet weather the northern section team were unable to continue with fishplate greasing this week, so instead we journeyed up to Hoe and spent the day changing cracked rail chairs in the vicinity of the level crossing and under Hoe Road Bridge (1698)
Eight Northern Section volunteers, including two new members, braved the snow-covered track to continue tree clearance north of Swanton Road. We really needed a good sized bonfire to keeps us warm, however a heavy frost meant that nothing would burn, whatever we tried. As always our thanks go to Paul for felling several very large trees.
Today turned out to be a beautiful clear day but a little cold. We soon warmed up with a fire to clear last month's cuttings. We also managed to cut up a good size tree trunk that was also felled last month along with taking down another tree. We were fortunate to have had John Woods and Toby Rawlings out to help. While they were there, we took the opportunity to lift the track roughly to level where the embankment has settled significantly over the years.