Amongst the VGRs external contract list can now be added standard gauge track at Bylands!

A collecter of trams had the need for a short length of track be made for his latest acquisition.

It was relatively labour intensive work with sleepers laid out by hand and the rails manipulated into place with the crane truck and crow bars. But otherwise a very simple and straightforward task.

It was a strangely quick job, with the travel time longer than the work! Another interesting job and a very nice change of scenery.

Despite the rather hot weather predicted for the rest of this week we will still be installing more concrete sleepers, this time in curve 10. We won’t be out to set any records but we will try playing with some new toys. Meet Maldon 8am or site from 8.45am if you’d like to join us.

Well after today all the spiking on the rails installed yesterday is completed, as well as managing to install and complete an extra 5 lengths. Leaving only 10 to go in this straight.

Unfortunately we forgot to take any photos! But with a bit of imagination you can guess what it looks like.

We also found time to collect all the old jewellery, a big time saver for later on.

Next week will be lineside mowing early in the week, with concrete sleeper replacements Thursday and Friday.

Another successful day on the re-railing gang, with 27 80lb rails in place and partly spiked.

We started off with very nice mild and overcast weather, perfect for trackwork, it turned to a fairly sunny day but still comfortable. Here the gang unloads all the gear off the trucks.

In no time the unfastening was well under way, a slightly cantankerous rattle gun gave the screw removers a little trouble but they pushed through and got there.

We even got to try out our new gizmo today, it’s a sleeper drill (which featured briefly months ago) which was missing a nose cone to direct the drill into the sleeper plate hole. Bazz finally managed to find time, in between all the other hundreds of jobs we lump him with, to manufacture one! It works very well, much quicker and easier, but a few small tweaks will no doubt occur over time.

You can see the whole gang was eager to check it out!

This section is abundant with steel sleepers and we’ve discovered it’s much easier to fasten them before the timber as it not only sets gauge but it allows more flexibility with installing the lugs, as Will is doing here.

Rolf’s primary task today, closely supervised here by Bruce and Clive, was marking the hole locations for the dogspikes. An important job as there is often up to two previous sets of holes in most sleepers so it’s important to ensure the new spikes go into solid wood.

By close of play all 27 rails we installed, spiked 1 in 3 and tamped. Tomorrow’s crew should easily knock over all the spiking and will most likely try to get in at least 3 more rails, this will reduce the workload for the last section.

Any extra hands always welcome, the more hands the more we can achieve, so please join us at Maldon at 8am or site from 8.30am.

This week is all about re-railing. Today was spent cleaning up the remaining jewellery from last week and dropping out the new jewellery.

Here the ballast has been scraped aside to allow for the rail to moved into position.

Sleeper plates, fish plates, bolts and steel sleeper fastening were dropped out. Here John’s placing one sleeper plate at the end of every sleeper.

A view of all the rail in place ready for tomorrow’s crew to bolt up.