It's Too Darn Hot

We seem to have gone from the depths of winter ("Beast from the East" etc) to summer heat wave in only a few short weeks this year. If there's such a thing as an optimum temperature for p.way work, we must only hit it about twice a year, if we're lucky.......

Saturday saw the gang finish installing the 98lb rail in Redmire sidings, using the fishplates we collected from Peterborough last week. 98lb FB to 95lb bullhead junction plates have also now been obtained from our supplier and will be fitted shortly.

Monday saw a visit to Doncaster to collect yet more donated goodies, including 12x baseplated hardwood sleepers and another batch of fishplates. Our stocks of junction fishplates in particular are now looking very healthy indeed.

Andy C visited the caravan site east of Leyburn on Tuesday to rectify some local wide gauge. One sleeper needed replacing, while others were pulled through and re- drilled. Unfortunately he also identified heavily headworn rail, which we'll need to add to the list for attention.

Today (Wednesday) has seen the midweek gang back in Leeming Yard, installing long timbers under the crossing nose on the new points, together with plain hardwood sleepers in the "belly" (middle) of the points: in order to save long timbers, we're interlacing standard sleepers here. The switches for the points have been dragged round from the car park, and will be placed in position this Saturday.

PLANNED WORKS: this Friday we'll be at Westfield Farm, between Leyburn Shawl and Wensley, kicking off a programme of heavy maintenance there which will continue through June. Saturday is back to Leeming Yard.

Sleeper replaced and others pulled- through and redrilled to correct local wide gauge

And the reason why the gauge was going wide: sleeper rotting away under the chair!

Andy Waite helps install the check rail on the new points

 

A work in progress.......

Switches dragged round from car park

Deliveries and Collections

Wednesday saw a visit from our friendly track materials merchant, who delivered timbers for the new point in the yard plus other bits and bobs for various jobs around the railway, all in exchange for a load of scrap bullhead rail and broken/ damaged chairs. Not only does swapping scrap for much needed materials save us financial outlay, it also tidies up the lineside: some of the scrap rail we encounter has been lying around since BR days.

On Thursday it was our turn for a day out, and the two Andys (C and W) headed south in the Transit tipper, picking up yours truly on the way, for a visit to Peterborough. After a quick stop at the local butty van, the tipper was filled with 98lb fishplates kindly donated to us by Amey Rail, along with further redundant baseplates, some junction fishplates and sundry other goodies.

So, over two days we've obtained sufficient materials to finish re-railing Redmire sidings and the point installation in the yard, plus make a start on our next heavy maintenance job at Westfields Farm near Wensley, and all for the cost of a tank of diesel!!
PLEASE NOTE CHANGE TO PLAN THIS SATURDAY: We'll be back at Redmire now we've got plenty of fishplates.

Alan watches the scrap lorry out of the car park

Andy W's hi-vis T-shirt now sports a running repair, where a previous escape attempt by his belly has been patched with gaffer tape.

We like our food.......

A good haul

Latest News: Tuesday 15th May

The Saturday gang have been up at Redmire MOD sidings, installing and clipping- up 60 foot rails. The original rail here was 109lb flat bottom in very good condition, so it was taken up in January and used in our track renewal at Argill Farm near Harmby. Its replacement is "sidings grade" 98lb flat bottom, and is being installed in the original F19 concrete sleepers. 8x panels were completed, and this work will continue in due course.

The Monday (Leyburn) gang replaced a further 17x wooden sleepers east of Wensley level crossing yesterday, as well as doing a spot of fine alignment with the slewing jacks. All the new softwood sleepers we dropped here back in March have been used up, and the gang will now head further towards Leyburn to tackle creep within the flat bottom rail at Westfield Farm.

Our full time P.Way Supervisor, Andy Chapman, took the pickup to Akebar today, attending to a broken fishplate which turned out to have been caused by a life expired sleeper on either side of the joint. Another two replacement sleepers used up: soon be needing to order more!

Next work parties: we've got materials delivery and scrap recovery at Leeming Bar tomorrow, starting at 08:30 on site. This Saturday (19/5) will be back to the new points in Leeming Yard, then Redmire Sidings again the following Wednesday (23/5). Next Monday gang working day is 4/6 due to the bank holiday.

Digging out to replace a joint sleeper on a baking hot afternoon. New, well packed joint sleepers should prevent a reoccurrence of the broken fishplates

The first new sleeper installed

Hello and welcome!

Welcome to our new Permanent Way department blog, where we'll be letting the wider world know a bit more about the work we do, the projects we're undertaking on behalf of the Wensleydale Railway and what we've got coming up.


We maintain and renew 22 miles of single track railway between Castle Hills Junction at Northallerton (where we join up with the East Coast Main Line) and the village of Redmire on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. On top of that, we're also delivering key parts of the Railway's development plan, including installing a passing loop at Leyburn and trackwork into our new rolling stock maintenance shed at Leeming Bar.


We welcome all help and assistance, and always like to hear from anyone who's thinking of volunteering on the Railway. Its not all hard graft, and there are suitable tasks for everybody: save on the gym membership and get out into the beautiful Yorkshire countryside for some honest exercise with us!

We work Saturdays, Wednesdays and every other Monday.