Jacker Packer Aviemore Loop - 21st Febuary 2016

The Jacker Packer has been stored on it's stand by the turntable at Aviemore for some weeks now, poised for action and once the Diesel Multiple Unit had departed Aviemore Station Limits, we set about putting it on rail

 

by laying the stand rails on the rails at right angles

 

then Stuart carefully drove forward, below the centre of Packer a hydraulic turntable foot lifts the machine upwards to clear the wheels from the stand rails, then by hand it is rotated 90 degrees and by lining up the wheels, carefully lowered onto the rails, then driven to the worksite which was the Loop line in the Station.

 

Ballast having previously been dropped and ploughed by Georgie had to still be shovelled onto the far away shoulder, so that there was enough to pack under it. Above Angus (who braved the miserable weather two days running) starts this process. 

 

Here Mike guides Stuart on getting the track level. As mentioned the DMU was running, which was a pity as I could have done with more breaks as there was no requirement for it to use the Loop.

 

 

Of course after packing there was the obligatory tidying up of the ballast ,which we did not manage to complete but it sure looks a lot better than it did.