The Calm Before the Storm

Its been a quiet week, with Andy C off on holiday in the wilds of the West Highlands, and the normal train service winding down for another year. It all kicks off for the P.Way on Monday though: that's when we'll be taking possession at Leyburn with the aim of installing the new west points under the road bridge before the Santa trains start running at the end of the month.

This new turnout will be longer and shallower than the east turnout which we installed back in 2017.
The latter, an inclined flat bottom B8, was cobbled together from what we had lying around available at the time, whereas the west point is a vertical flat bottom C9.25, and has been specially purchased as a kit of parts from Network Rail's switch and crossing recycling facility at Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire. The letters B and C relate to the angle of the switches, which become shallower as you work through the alphabet (by the time you reach G or H you're talking about the ridiculously long and shallow high-speed turnouts at Colton Junction south of York!) The number relates to the angle of the crossing nose (the Americans can keep their "frogs", thank you), 9.25 relating to a one in nine and a quarter angle.

Given that we'll be working under a long road bridge AND the nights are drawing in AND we can't rely on the sun shining, we've fixed temporary floodlighting to the abutments so we can work safely. Many thanks to David W and David H for supplying and fitting these.

Work has also been progressing off site preparing materials for the ground frame and associated connections which will eventually operate the east points. Swan neck connectors and adjustable sleeves have been removed from some point rodding cranks we recovered from Gainsborough Lea Road a couple of years ago, cleaned up and moving parts oiled. David H will shortly be building a "crank bench" for us, the purpose of which is to turn the point drive and FPL rods through ninety degrees to run in parallel with the track. Well that's the theory anyway!

Twin floodlights under the bridge. There are four of these, so it'll be nice and bright in there!!!

General arrangement of the cranks on the bench we'll be building shortly. FPL on left, point drive on right

Stripping the connectors off another ex- Gainsborough crank. The adjustable sleeve was pointing the wrong way!

All the old gunge was removed from the pivot pin, which was then filled with new oil

Shunting at Leyburn!

The weekend gone saw the eastern two thirds of the new Leyburn loop brought into use as a siding for the time being. A works train was also run on Friday to get various wagons loaded/ unloaded/ moved to Leyburn in readiness and in the right configuration for the west end points installation in November. A number of other logistical moves were completed to support various jobs over the winter period.

Saturday's job was further spot- resleepering of the panels towards the west end of the loop, plus making a start on the S&T fit- out on the east end points. The plan is to install a ground frame here in the short term, pending installation of whatever permanent signalling scheme the railway's management decides upon. It was nice to do some "Sick & Tired" work for a change though!!

The hired- in JCB prepares to load the remaining flat bottom rails at Redmire to the Salmon wagon

Followed by recovering the 20x F19 concrete sleepers which have lain next to the bridge for many years

Which were then loaded to the Flatrol

And finally we part loaded a Dogfish to top up last month's mini- relay behind the Jonas Centre

The Class 14 arrives at Leyburn from Redmire

P.Way's finest discuss the next moves......

Unloading a Sea Urchin wagon at Peter Blacks UWC, to create capacity for more spoil from Leyburn West

The whole works train reversed into Leyburn loop

Close- up of our works train loco

Andy W performs the critical task of leaning on the Flatrol

Proper shunting at Leyburn!

We shunt around for hours and hours

Parts of the loop have now been boxed- in following the recent tamping. Starting to look the part!

David C prays for divine intervention

He's now a fully fledged S&T fitter you know (or so we've told him)

Apologies for the lack of service.....

Apologies for the long gap since our last update, but your blogger's been on holiday and generally busy elsewhere. That's not to say things haven't been happening on the railway, far from it!

Recent work has however been rather mundane, compared with say, tamping the new loop at Leyburn. Spot replacement of defective rails and sleepers has been the order of the day, with work concentrated on Redmire (5mph TSR removed), Spruce Gill UWC (another 5mph TSR removed) and between Wensley and Westfield Farm. The Saturday gang also managed to fit a hand-lever to the new points in Leeming Bar yard, saving our Ops colleagues the time and effort in having to scotch and clip them every time.

We've hopefully got a works train out and about on the 19th, sorting out the logistics for a number of forthcoming jobs including the installation of Leyburn West points (which just about fills up our diary for November all by itself).

If any of our readers are involved with heritage railways elsewhere, we're on the scrounge for the concrete "stools" which support mechanical point rodding, say 20-25 of these beasts. They can be with or without the metal frames and wheels which fit on top: we've got plenty of those! Drop us a note if you can point us in the direction of any. We need to install them soon, before we top up the shoulder ballast on the loop following the tamper's visit!

A couple of freshly installed bullhead rails at Spruce Gill UWC, replacing old 90lb rails with head cracking

A couple of newly changed sleepers at Spruce Gill

Michael M boxing- in behind his Leyburn colleagues up near Wensley

Safe to say this sleeper has been long deceased....

Off home, with a cheeky pile of firewood loaded to the trolley!!

Tamping

A Volker Rail tamper has been on the Railway for the last two days as part of a training exercise. The original plan was for them to spend three days with us, but crewing issues unfortunately cut the visit short. As ever though, we're extremely grateful for what the crew achieved for us.

The new loop at Leyburn was tackled yesterday using the lift and slew data we calculated on Saturday. The required geometry was achieved in the most part, albeit leaving the track very bare of ballast where the lifts were the biggest. We'll drop a bit more stone when we install the west points in November. The end result looks superb though, and it feels like we're starting to break the back of the loop project. The noteworthy milestone achieved however was two "trains" passing each other at Leyburn for the first time in many years, as the service train headed through to Redmire while the tamper was at work in the loop.

Today saw last weekend's mini-relay at Redmire tamped, this time using the on-board computer to design the optimal line and level.

We look forward to the next time our friends from Volkers come back to pay a visit!

The tamper also corrected a slight misalignment just before the switch fronts

The new loop looking much straighter!

New loop from the tamper cab. The points were also given a "squeeze"

Last weekend's relay now tamped

Go West!

With the works at Ainderby and Ladyfield all wrapped up, mid- September saw us head 20 miles west to the opposite end of the railway at Redmire. We delivered a short, 2x panel relay off the front of the flat- bottom points behind the Jonas Centre, for no better reasons than we had the rails, sleepers and ballast in stock, plus we needed some spare lengths of 90lb bullhead rail to remove defects with locally. The job was delivered over three days: one day's worth of vegetation bashing to create working space alongside, one day to deliver materials, rip out the existing bullhead track and dig, and one day to relay the new materials, tip stone and pack with the Robel hand tampers. The job was handed back to traffic ready for the weekend with a 5mph TSR in place, but we've got a Volker Rail main line tamper visiting for training next week which should put a really nice top on it.

West of the points towards the platform, we've made a start on yet more spot- replacement of rotten softwood sleepers fitted with pre-grouping chairs. Three in a row were changed around a joint, where the combination of vertical movement and poor drainage was causing wet beds.

Last but not least, we spent yesterday (Saturday) prepping Leyburn loop for tamping next week, including spreading the ballast we dropped previously, marking-up lifts and slews, highlighting obstacles etc.

Every job should start with a good bonfire

Completing the dig

First length of concrete sleepers in and fine-lined

Rails installed and all clipped-up

Ballasted, hand tamped and cross-levels checked. Good for 5mph until the tamper pays a visit

Slurried ballast dug out and new sleepers going in

New sleepers around the joint and backfilled with clean ballast

Incoming.....

This past week and a bit has been all about getting ready for today's incoming railtour off the main line. As well as visual track inspections and yet more cutting back encroaching vegetation, we had some long planned spot- resleepering between the River Wiske viaduct and Ladyfield UWC which we thought it prudent to get out the way first.

This was facilitated by a further delivery of nice new softwood sleepers which arrived the week before last from our supplier down in Lincolnshire. In total we replaced 66x life-expired specimens through what was a particularly poor and neglected length of track. A fair amount of winter firewood was also produced, with the brash disposed of on the usual roaring bonfires.

The charter traverses the eastern end of the railway

Return charter crossing the River Swale viaduct

Ainderby Complete

Contractors completed the installation of the new deck and tarmac at Ainderby during the week. Only the gates remain to be refitted. Andy C and the our trusty p.way van were the first across.....

Ainderby Station Crossing Renewal

Thankfully the weather had cooled- off a bit before we tackled this job, as it would've been a real chew in the recent high temperatures.

The crossing comprised life expired bullhead track with wooden sleepers, basically just buried in tarmac with a flangeway formerly protected by a wooden strip which had long since rotted away. The road surface was becoming very worn and uneven, with numerous patches and holes presenting an additional hazard to cyclists in particular, so the decision was taken to go for complete track and deck replacement. The presence of a nearby primary school dictated that the necessary road closure was booked for the summer holiday period.

We had a good turnout of volunteers on both Friday and Saturday, ably assisted by a JCB from our friends at Scarr Plant Hire. First job was to lift off the gates (which are double track width), followed by breaking up the tarmac with a pecker. This revealed a surprise to us: a reinforced concrete conduit running through what would have been the "six foot", capped with short transverse lengths of old bullhead rail and containing mechanical point rodding. The true purpose of the manhole in the middle of the road  (which we initially though was drainage related) was suddenly revealed, giving access to the conduit for inspection purposes. We know there was formerly a signalbox at Ainderby together with some sidings, so this is obviously how the rodding runs crossed under the road at the crossing. It was all getting very "Time Team" for a while!! However historic and interesting it all was though, it was ultimately in the way of the new cill- beams, so there was some additional unplanned work for the pecker to break it all out.

Saturday saw the replacement EG47 sleepers lifted off the Flatrol wagon then laid out, spaced and lined through the crossing, followed by dragging and lifting-in a pair of 60 foot flat bottom rails ex- Redmire. The whole lot was then clipped- up by hand and roughly packed with some leftover ballast in the yard, allowing the works train to reverse over and drop the contents of a Dogfish hopper wagon through the four foot. Although a start was made lifting and packing the new track to the correct height, we were all starting to tire by this stage so we called it a day. This last task will be completed on Monday and Tuesday, with the specialist contractor arriving on Wednesday to install the new cill beams and deck units.

Before we started, with the poor tarmac and mystery manhole evident

Digging out the spoil, which resembled topsoil, from the crossing

Initial excavation complete

Pecking out the old concrete conduit which held the mechanical point rodding

Spacing the new concrete sleepers

Starting to put the rails in

Rails in place

Clipping the rails to the sleepers

Four foot run from the Dogfish complete

Making a start on lifting and packing