Aviemore re-sleepering complete & New Works contd. - 9th May 2121

Another great turnout, considering the snow earlier in the week.

Mike was delegated to take a squad to finish off the re-sleepering, packing and filling in ballast on the mainline, this was completed by lunch and he assured us that it is now a prize length!- Alas no photos. 

Our first task was to key up the Up rail on the concrete sleepers, fine and easy when the formation is level, not so otherwise - as elevating concrete sleepers is not easy, as they are somewhat heavy! Above Fergus rarely seen sitting down on a job - actually using his weight to lever the sleeper up, to allow Bruce to open jaws of chair to allow Andrew to hammer the key in, often Justin and Bart used bars too, to get extra height.

Our next task was to insert all the chairs on the closure rail, this necessitated the removal of all the interlaced sleepers but at least they are wooden, again keyed up, this time gauged, only one hole drilled and screwed down, to allow for further tweaking later.

 The Shed Foreman Nathen kindly heated up the rail using the Shed gas burner so Georgie could use a "Jim Crow" (anyone know why named so?) to slightly bend the rail into requisite shape at the toe of the switch. 

Later in the afternoon a crucial bit of PWay kit - the string appeared! - to determine where the target board was to be positioned, so that the rail in number one road is at the same elevation as the new track.  

After considerable jacking up of the crossing, Georgie used the clamshell bucket to drop ballast, so we could furiously pack it under the timbers, remove jacks, move forward sight & jack up and repeat.

Fair to say we were all pretty tired by the later than normal finish.

Thanks to Mike, Martin, Angus, Bart, Justin, Fergus, Iain, Andrew, Ben & Bruce who regularly joins us from a warmer Wiltshire.

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Addendum provided by Kevin - Sunday saw Georgie, Alasdair, Bruce and Kevin continue works from his recall below -

 "We slewed over the rails using angled jacks to improve the running line (again),

We lifted the rail level and packed the sleepers from where the sat crew left off to the end of the line

We drilled and screwed the chairs to sleepers (without a chuck key as it had gone missing YET AGAIN) in so doing we flattened all the batteries and got through all remaining fuel !

We dug out the interwoven sleepers at the points, leveled the base and repositioned them.

And, we had a staff meeting and concluded that all future on-site talk would be conducted in scottish-gaidhlig" (Gaelic? - Kevin might hail originally from South of Watford?)

 Alasdair backfills under the newly repositioned siding sleepers whilst Georgie multitasks by delicately providing a balancing lift, assesses the newly aligned and screwed rail and checks for any vicarious activity on board the passing crew-training engine This delicate balancing lark is harder than it looks!"

Many thanks to all.