Work in Progress: 11th March

This week - the Thursday Gang become the Friday Gang!

With there being no service trains this Friday, General Manager Martyn Budd took the opportunity for the gang to undertake some track work without interruption. Some of the Thursday Gang were able to change to the Friday. Nigel Thompson works on Fridays and the usual standby "reporters" were all unavailable. You just can't get the staff! However, so as not to disappoint Roger Bye arranged for Mike Corner to take some photos so that Roger could then at least compile a report for us all. So our thanks to Roger and Mike for providing this content.

1. Glorious weather greeted the rearranged Thursday Gang on Friday. Considerable effort is required to shift ballast, lift sleepers, drill holes and tighten screws...and the gang are not so young as once they were!

2. Those of you who follow these Work in Progress Reports will be aware that an extensive programme of sleeper replacement has been underway over the past months. Martyn Budd had been out again with his dreaded yellow paint marking sleepers for replacement. Here a lone member of the Gang lines up a sleeper while the works train idles in the background.

3. An inevitable result of individual sleeper replacement and disturbing the ballast is the appearance of undulations in the track resulting in rough running. The track has to be re-aligned by packing ballast or fine gravel under the sleepers. However, on curves the track is inclined to the inside of the curve. This angle, known as cant, is 15 degrees on the section of the track being worked on. The cant has to be maintained while smoothing out any undulations making for a complex three dimensional puzzle. This picture shows how the rails are slightly raised by the jacks, the cant is checked using a spirit level and the specially made stepped Cant Gauge on the right hand rail.

4. Fine gravel (seen in the barrow) is injected under the sleeper to be raised. The gravel is blown in by compressed air - the skilled bit - demonstrated here by Dave Bloomfield - is to feed the hopper with enough gravel but not so fast that the nozzle blocks up!

5. After lowering and removing the jacks the alignment is rechecked and the track and ballast tidied up.

6. After another hard day of track work the gang load the replaced sleepers on the works train ready to travel back to Woody Bay while Martyn Budd (and Fred his dog) carry out a final check of the realigned track.

In all probability, the "Friday Gang" will revert back to being the "Thursday Gang" once again next week.

Words Roger Bye - photos Mike Corner