We had a successful day today, with the rerailing completed without much hassle at all.

Before…

After. It’s very much a carbon copy of what we did at the other end a few years ago. With the aim to remove a few rough joints and reduce the maintenance in these high traffic locations.

We secured the remaining timber sleepers with pandrol adapters. This should extend their useful life by a few years.

We then set about replacing 2 point timbers at the down end, correcting a minor gauge fault there also.

Correcting the minor gauge issue at the toe of the points, of course, meant that the interlocking needed a full readjustment and check to ensure all was well.

The most challenging part of the day was tightening / replacing V crossing bolts in the down end 3 road turnout, to help stop the crossing moving as much under traffic, the bolts were extremely stubborn.

Today’s photos are slightly blurry, due to a slight technology issue that we couldn’t resolve, sorry about that.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Muckleford from 8am to finish off a few odd jobs before the weekend.

We had a very successful, if not a bit hot, day at Muckleford.

We replace 19 sleepers in the curve at the UP end of 1 road, in a rough 1 in 3 pattern, to ensure we can hold gauge and to allow for the re-railing of the high leg of the curve to remove a few issues with joints. If the weather Thursday is kind enough, we’ll change the rail then, as we’ve now got a joint which we can’t secure up properly given we had to change fishplates to use the concrete sleepers.

We’ve replaced 5 point timbers in the down end 3 road turnout, the rest of the timber is quite reasonable, however these 5 were particularly bad, one of these was under the point lever, which was becoming an issue, corrected now however.

On Thursday and Friday we’ve still got a few timbers to replace in the next turnout and we’ll potentially even have a go at straightening the very bent point blade.

Thursday’s gang will meet at Maldon 8am or our at Muckleford from 8.15am.

We had a very successful, if not a bit hot, day at Muckleford.

We replace 19 sleepers in the curve at the UP end of 1 road, in a rough 1 in 3 pattern, to ensure we can hold gauge and to allow for the re-railing of the high leg of the curve to remove a few issues with joints. If the weather Thursday is kind enough, we’ll change the rail then, as we’ve now got a joint which we can’t secure up properly given we had to change fishplates to use the concrete sleepers.

We’ve replaced 5 point timbers in the down end 3 road turnout, the rest of the timber is quite reasonable, however these 5 were particularly bad, one of these was under the point lever, which was becoming an issue, corrected now however.

On Thursday and Friday we’ve still got a few timbers to replace in the next turnout and we’ll potentially even have a go at straightening the very bent point blade.

Thursday’s gang will meet at Maldon 8am or our at Muckleford from 8.15am.

Sorry about the late notice, however tomorrow’s workday will be at Muckleford Yard, replacing a series of failing timber sleepers at the UP end of 1 road. It’s predicted to get hot, so we may well call it quits earlier than usual, however we’ve picked a job that isn’t too much trouble to walk away from if need be.

Meeting at Maldon at 8am or Muckleford Yard from 8.30am.

We did manage to make use of today’s cooler wet weather to get the ballast tidied up from last week. It has come up looking quite smart.