New Works Aviemore, Broohmill nearly concluded - 7&10th August 2024

Unexpectedly Wednesday's midweek squad was summoned to rendezvous Aviemore Shed, 

for sometime road two pit has been out of use awaiting refurbishment.

Georgie has taken the opportunity to also reconnect road one at the same time, apparently Shed Staff require it all to be done within three Months.... Roddy above makes a back breaking start removing all the fishplates towards shed doors, Mike failed to find the appropriate socket for powertool assistance!

Georgie more successful with attachments for Road Rail Vehicle.   

All rails, spoil and timbers large and small removed onto PWay trains, which were shunted about the yard by Nathan. Still a lot of manual lifting required, the very old chairs are heavier than they look and safely stacked away for future use.

Thanks to Mike, Roddy, David.

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Saturday saw squad back at Broomhill almost concluding works there. 

Thanks to Mike (who was sent on a Track Inspection) Richard, David, Fergus and Michael (part-timer!)

 

Broomhill Up Cess - 6th July 2024

 Its been a while and we are still at Broomhill re-sleepering and inserting Pan 11 baseplates - more in a future blog.

 

Yesterday saw a small squad of only two - David and myself tidy the ballast in the four foot where the re-sleepering is completed on the mainline in the distance.  

By the time Georgie arrived we were onto trying to recreate the Up Cess, 

which was ideal as no one can finish it off better than her!

POLITE NOTICE from her to Enginecrew and others Please Do Not disturb the ballast on the shoulder!

Broomhill S&C complete? - 20th April 2024

It has been a while since the last post, holidays etc. - Mike reports

Saturday 20th April saw a good squad meet up yet again at Broomhill, the order of the day was many track jacks and much jacking and packing of the newly installed switch and crossing (S&C) at the North end of the run-round loop, followed by Georgie's requisite

 "now tidy up the ballast boys"!   

By the time Mike took the above photos, David (been away - injury and a wee trip to New Zealand) and himself had been tasked to oil all the S&C fishplates 

and tighten to the correct torque, whilst the rest of the squad joined by Fergus after his Aviemore Section Track Inspection had started the tiring digging out the sleepers in the loop that require changing............next time.

Thanks to - Georgie, Mike, David, Richard, Steve (new chap) Ian and Iain.

Switch & Crossing in eventually - two week ending 16th March

Saturday 9th saw a good squad assemble in anticipation of much visible progress with our 12 tonne Rail Crane, alas it broke down almost immediately, necessitating Nathan to make a wee trip to Inverness to get a part sorted/made. 

Mid afternoon recommencement of the big lift 

and this was the scene at close of play at a late 6pm!

Thanks to John for photos and of course all that attended.

By Thursday 14th Georgie and I believe Fergus had been busy rebuilding the switch recorded above at the start of another mid week day with a good turnout (no pun intended!)

Our aim to insert closure rails - which inevitably meant dealing with Mike's favourite fixing - elastic spikes! Martin doing the easy part hammering them in, although as it transpired all 6 holes in the baseplates had to be spiked to give them a good grip on the sharp curve. 

Georgie doing the technical as always - measuring, cutting and inserting the rails. Angus and Roddy fishplating up and myself any labouring. Job complete to Georgie's satisfaction by 4pm.

Saturday 16th saw the 4 length gap closed up with concrete sleepers, rubber pads, biscuits, clips and newer rails.

 

Possibly a bit of slewing still to do! But essentially stringy bits all joined up again.

Hate to think the number of man/woman hours put into this time critical project but we were certainly helped by dry weather. 

 

Broomhill progress to 8th March 2024

Sunday 2nd March saw a brave John doing his second day in a row and Richard his THIRD on the PWay 

John reports - 3 hours of digging out more ballast and another two lengths of removing the dreadful elastic spikes all but killed them, so they were very grateful to see Rob turn up to assist. Alas the Colmar Road Rail machine wasn't able to slew the track, even under Georgie's expert handling

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Wednesday saw Fergus and Georgie in a bitingly cold but dry wind, coax the trusty
Muscleman (above) back into life to continue slewing, alas it did burst a pipe three times! But it did what it is designed to do to Georgie's satisfaction.

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John reports of Friday's shenanigans - More slewing today with the muscleman which only broke down twice (which is at least an improvement!) and manually with rail jacks, bit of digging sleeper ends out for another 3 lengths towards the station. Stripped 6 sleepers of the new point panels to lessen weight for the crane.

Then we swapped 6 sleepers under the newly re-located catch point, 1 rail end cut to length.

Thanks to Georgie, Ian, Martin, Angus and Iain for the assistance.

(thanks to John for all the photos)

 

More digging and much more at Broomhill - 1st & 2nd March 2024

A few of us had a Friday off work, so where else would we go for fresh air and exercise!

Rare photo above (Richard, Ian, Michael, Roddy) Michael actually working!!! Possibly with the encouragement of Ian. In the glorious sunny morning digging out the switch and crossing was completed.

And after a rather smoky lunch, we had digging out the remainder of the plain line to look forward to, in the event it was easier than anticipated, as the wee clamshell bucket saved us a lot of heavy digging, although we were getting rather tired, Ian and Richard with Georgie sighting marked out the new alignment. Roddy took above arty photo - showing the soon to be replaced naked wooden Mills Clip track panels

 Richard above then finessed the new rails into position with the help of the Colmar and Georgies skillful operation. 

Thanks to all that attended.

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On Saturday, 2nd day of meteorological Spring, the drive up the A9 to Broomhill didn't exactly fill us with glee!

As captured by John in Ian's car, who met up with  Angus, Mike, Martin, Fergus, Richard, Iain, myself and Georgie at an altogether more balmy worksite.

Above showing existing alignment, proposed is just visible - red ground mark and new rail will be the position of sleeper ends. 

Think it was two plain lengths of Mills clips removed, rail dragged out, then sleepers man handled so that Georgie could reach with Colmar. 

Then unscrew catch points and remove to PWay train in loop.

Then a couple of lengths of the dreaded elastic spikes, each time Georgie went to the train with redundant material, she came back with required components in the grab.

A lot of unscrewing required on actual switch and crossing, which was finally dismantled and removed after half of us had left site.

Yet again thanks to the many that turned out and I hope Georgie was pleased with progress!

Digging out at Broomhill - 17th & 21st February

Georgie got a new very handy attachment for our Road Rail Vehicle - a clamshell bucket able to scoop the ballast in between the sleepers - saving a lot of manual back breaking shovelling

as photo'd by John officially on the Grantown Extension on Saturday 17th February

It made digging out the plain line easy 

alas the switch and crossing still problematic requiring the manual sweat of John, Richard and Ian - 180 feet plain line dug and 2/3rds of the switch.

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Yesterday me and Mike had a couple of hours digging almost to the nosing of the crossing but other more pressing track maintenance took precedence.

Mike mentioned that within about a Month of installation the first time round tie-bars had to be inserted to hold the guage and they have only multiplied over the years! Apparently the whole alignment is to be slewed to the right above......