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Latest News: Archive
February 2010
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Latest News: Archive
February 2010
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By Trevor Brackpool, Owen Stratford and Robin Stratford.
Despite an icy start, a large but very happy group continued to battle to fell trees hidden beneath bramble mountains. We are pleased to report that great progress was made and it took 8 volunteers working all day to burn the material that was cut.
Work has also started during this week with two days strimming on the upside embankment between Hardingham Station and Danemoor Bridge (1682). It is hoped to fell the overhanging blackthorn bushes, which are very close to the train, and tidy up the embankment to leave hawthorn and mature trees well away from the track again before the birds nest.
P Way completed the current tranche of work on the north side of Thuxton Loop today. A few of us had an early start and loaded up the six Dogfish ballast hoppers with the help of David and his JCB. (We had to clear the running line for a charter train.) The JCB was then employed to excavate out the formation under where the last two panels will be installed adjacent to the level crossing to the south and also a short length just to the north of the level crossing. Meanwhile the rest of the gang changed eighteen sleepers on the already laid panels. Because the panels were installed as delivered, there were a few sleepers that would only last a few years. It is much easier to change them before the ballast is laid. An S&T contingent worked on the southern crossover, fitting the new lock stretcher bar to the turnout on the up side of the loop. Then the old PW stretcher bars were removed and three new ones fitted and gauged. These were taken back to Dereham and drilled. The bars are made of spring steel and so are incredibly hard and require special drills. The bolts are then inserted as an interference fit to minimise movement before returning and fitting the bars to the point. Finally the last job of the day was drop four of the hoppers onto the last remaining stretch of unballasted track and run the shark over it to spread it around. The class 08 then returned to Dereham at a very sedate pace with the hoppers in tow.
Two of us spent the morning at Thuxton marking up the track ready for a tamper. The geometry and cant was marked onto the sleepers and track lifts measured and placed onto the rails. We then cleared the ballast off of each of the sleepers, so that the tamper operator can see them, and topped up a few low beds by hand.
Despite another icy start, eight volunteers continued with the tree-felling and clearance work in Danemoor Cutting. During the morning another volunteer strimmed further towards Kimberley to allow the group easier access to the tree stumps in future weeks.
In the afternoon the regrowth on the cleared upside section between bridges 1681 and 1682 was strimmed and whilst it didn't look much, the brambles and saplings were beginning to take hold again. Strimming needs to be done to allow the grasses to establish but as this shows it is not only time consuming but very tiring work on the sloping surface.
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Setting the turnout to gauge. 13th February 2010. Photo: Paul Mobbs |
P Way attended to the point into the yard in Dereham today. We needed to change the timbers between the back of the switch and the front of the crossing in order to correct a fault: because the timbers are old, the gauge was starting to spread. As an interim measure, gauge ties had been fitted but these are only a temporary solution. The ballast was already dug out and so we began the day by removing all of the screws in the affected area and moving the outside rail to one side to ease access. The new timbers were laid out to ensure that we had the right sizes ready to install. We then removed all of the offending timbers and placed the new ones back into the large empty space. The outside rail was returned and we worked our way through the straight route, aligning the sleepers before gauging, drilling and screwing down the chairs.
6 volunteers began clearance of overhanging blackthorn that have always been too close to trains and have needed trimming each year. Chain-sawing and burning the worst section, whilst retaining vegetation well away from the track, should solve the problem for a number of years.
We returned to Dereham today to complete the re-timbering of the yard entrance point. We started off by gauging and securing the diverging route. With all of the rails now secured, we then jacked the whole point up and packed ballast back under each of the sleepers. With the point runnable again, Barry and Owen used the crane to remove the bundle of scrap timbers and begin preparation for next week by unloading sleepers from the tench and reloading it with two rails. Meanwhile Trevor and Peter backfilled the ballast into the beds and made the whole area look presentable once more. Whilst all of this was going on, Barney was off strimming the embankment sides all day towards Yaxham.
The P-Way gang spread out the last concrete sleepers on the north side of Thuxton crossing, before placing two rails into the chairs that we brought from Dereham this morning. We also positioned a spare track panel in the south end of the loop. This required considerable care with the crane due to an overhead telephone cable. By the end of the day, we had greased up and fishplated the reminder of the south end of the loop, as well as changing a couple of sleepers that had disintegrated.
A tamper recently visited the area between the Trout Farm and Whinburgh Cutting, and as a result some of the more rotten sleepers have been finished off. We spent the day digging them out for urgent replacement. We lost count of how many we dug out but believe it was between 60 and 70.
By Toby Rawlings and Gary Hall.
The Northern Section group completed the trackwork started last month just north of Swanton Road by changing a further 12 sleepers before sorting out another 70 for possible reuse and transporting the best to Northall Green. The spare ironwork (totaling nearly 100 rail chairs and 300 chair screws) was removed from site while any outstanding sleepers were backfilled with ballast.
Heavy snow fall meant that most Northern Section volunteers decided not to venture out today. However, after making an early start, Paul and his chainsaw managed to fell the last of the trees south of Hoe Level Crossing.
The County School Area Group met this morning at 7:30. Although the weather was appalling we were blessed with 5 volunteers. Our first job was to install 2 more rails as posts along the drive by the speed bumps. We have noted that some drivers have a real problem staying on the road and require added encouragement. We then moved down to North Elmham and selected several trees to be taken down to make the job of flailing much easier. We retired to County School for a hot drink and a bite to eat. The weather conditions did not improve and most of us were wet through so we called it a day.