Ballasting

Having taken a back seat of late due to other pressures of work, the new loop at Leyburn has moved a step forward with completion of ballasting of the track laid so far. A hired-in JCB was used to load the four serviceable "Dogfish" hopper wagons from the ballast stockpile at Redmire, with two trips completed on Friday afternoon. The train was propelled as far up the loop as we could go with no issues encountered, apart from the usual creaking and groaning from the wagons! A total of five and a half hoppers were discharged in the loop itself, with another hopper and a half used to top up the shoulders at a couple of heat- risk sites and the final hopper returned to Leeming Bar for another day.



Michael Metcalfe supervises the wagons getting loaded



The train propels back on the first run

First run complete, and setting back into the platform before returning to Redmire

Propelling as far back as we could on the second run

We also finished moving the flat bottom rails from the west end of Redmire to the access point at the old dairy building using the ironmen gantries. The JCB then loaded a pair of sixty foots to the "Salmon" bogie flat wagon ready for delivery to Ainderby, where we'll be renewing the track and deck at the level crossing in August.

Variety is the spice of life as they say, and Saturday saw us switch to vegetation control, or tree- bashing as we prefer to call it. We tackled the public footpath crossing at 14 miles 5 chains, just east of Constable Burton loop, and significantly improved sighting for both crossing users and train drivers. A couple of big bonfires consumed the brash, with the logs stacked ready for future collection (p.way staff don't go cold in winter).

At the start of the day

Big improvement

The Leyburn gang have been carrying on the endless task of spot- resleepering, concentrating on the section between Wensley LC and Westfield UWC. They also replaced the gate at Peter Blacks UWC, where we see them posing for the photographer: