Busy day on the rails

[gav0994]

Had a busy 2 days on the p-way at the Heritage railway I volunteer on. We've been relaying a 200ft stretch of track from our yard to a display area onsite. The original track was past it with alot of corrosion and the sleepers were rotten and split.

So far we have about 120ft of sleepers laid and 1 60ft rail secured in its chairs and screwed to the sleepers. The other rail is resting in its chairs but not keyed in yet. We'll wait till we have the next 60ft section in so we can guage the rails before screwing the chairs down.

90% of the work has been done by 5 of us over the last 2 days. We've had Merlo telehandler on hire to do the heavy lifting, but due to space most of the work has been done by hand. Its hard work and all credit to the men who did this back in the 1800s when the first railways were laid.

 

[gav0994]

We had another day on the track laying today. Got a full 60ft of rail secured to the sleepers today, so we can use it if needed this weekend to sit rolling stock out of the way.

Had a company called Trac in today testing a brand new tree chipper machine mounted on a Valtra tractor. They get free use of our railway in return for them doing work for us whilst testing new kit.

Costs a whopping £375,000 most of which is the chipper unit and rail wheel equipment. Can be operated by controls on the chipper or with a remote control unit so no operators need to be close into the machine. We got some trees cleared for a new walkway and they're coming back to do some lineside weedkilling for us.

 

[gav0994]

Moving some waggons about today to make room for a transporter coming on Tuesday to uplift a Brake van the group have sold. These waggons are on a bit of track that is not accessible by loco at the moment so we had to rely on a good old Land Rover

 

[Tinbasherdan]

Moving some waggons about today to make room for a transporter coming on Tuesday to uplift a Brake van the group have sold. These waggons are on a bit of track that is not accessible by loco at the moment so we had to rely on a good old Land Rover
View attachment 143334

shunted our mates andrew barclay with his 90 the other week

 

[cardiffrob]

Ooooooh....look at all those mini Anvils in the first pic!

 

[Tinbasherdan]

Ooooooh....look at all those mini Anvils in the first pic!

these train folk are quite attached to them fo some reason god knows ive tried

 

[gav0994]

Ooooooh....look at all those mini Anvils in the first pic!

Bullhead rail, which we are using takes a bit more work to get to being an anvil. Flat bottom rail (90% of the network uses flat now) is far easier. We have sold short lengths of flat bottom for other uses recently.

 

[Robotstar5]

Can't you knock up some proper guide wheels for the Landy?

 

[gav0994]

Can't you knock up some proper guide wheels for the Landy?

View attachment 143370

One of those would be ideal for us when doing track work, but they're mega money.

 

[Robotstar5]

One of those would be ideal for us when doing track work, but they're mega money.

What about the budget version by replacing the road wheels?

 

[seriesonewelder]

What about the budget version by replacing the road wheels?

View attachment 143376

Saw him at the Severn Valley last year, he's going again this year in August

 

[Farside]

What about the budget version by replacing the road wheels?

View attachment 143376

I think part of the design brief of the first one was exactly that.

 

[galooph]

You can honestly say it pulls like a train now