Midweek oiling towards Broomhill

 

Having now completed the Aviemore section, today a start was made on fish-plate oiling from Boat of Garten to Broomhill. In the background two things can be seen firstly, the fenced off area is going to be a temporary storage compound for the company Laing O'Rourke, who are going to be doing Sewerage works in the Boat of Garten area. In exchange for this we will get 200 tonnes of ballast.   Secondly, just to the left of Mike's felt  hat (father's Burma WWII hat ), has very recently appeared the shiny, new sign below

 

which certainly brightens up the Mobile Plant Shed ("Morley's Mansion") but its a pity the Fire Station closed more than a year ago!

 

Royal Scotsman awaits departure this morning, notice the cleared, old coal loading area.  The recent weed killing has definitely taken effect. 

Mixed Traffic end of May 2014

 

 

 

 Class 37516/685 warming up to depart Boat of Garten with the Royal Scotsman 29/05/14 Class 37s likely to be hauling it for the foreseeable future since Network Rail have altered the route availability of the Inverness - Kyle line, therefore restricted the use of class 47/57s

 

 

 

 

and the same day, our currently multi-coloured Rail Crane preparing to lift 

 carriage bogies at Aviemore, saving the cost of the hire of a crane. Soon to be taken to the other end of the line for PWay work on the Dulnain Bridge. (both photos and info M.Tough)

 

 

 

 

On the 31st May an extra PWay day was organised to make up for lost time when the Jacker Packer burst a hydraulic hose. We hope to be able to source some spare parts for future inevitable such failures, as it is turning out to be an invaluable asset. I think 13 panels were completed on the rather warm day.(rest assured the high viz vest was replaced just after this shot was taken by J.Wood) pity the shorts weren't !

 



More Fishplate oiling - Wednesday 21st May

 

Glad to see the old girl back in service, Fishplate oiling continues a pace, had reached Estate level crossing near 85 1/2 milepost crossing by lunchtime of May 21st. I think the intension is to complete all the plain Mainline of the railway by "summer".

 

 

The old water tank site at Boat of Garten is now cleared, with the new tank top right. Gradually the environs around Boat are being tidied up, will try and get a photo of old coaling point by the South Signal Box.

 

 

Another project Ray (pictured) and Colin are heavily involved in, is the painting of the self propelled 12 tonne Rail Crane into PWay green, which found some brief space in the C&W repair shed. As Colin said only the jib to do!

Jacker Packer and Fishplate oiling - May 17/18

 

 

Good progress was made on Saturday 17th on packing the extension from Broomhill, with the Jacker Packer, until one of the hydraulic hoses burst, quite spectacularly I believe. Hopefully it will not take too long to source a replacement.

 

On the Sunday it was back to routine maintenance in the form of fishplate oiling, starting from 87 1/4 milepost working towards Aviemore. The "Race the Train" event passed below us with some shouts of "please can you delay the train for us?

 

 

 

46512 with a floral tribute to Graham Elkin, who sadly passed away recently after a long illness.

 

 

 

Working in three pairs meant that good psychological progress was made as we progressed six lengths at a time and I guess about a mile and a half was achieved.

Another long term project nears completion.

Driver Scott topping up 46512 at Boat of Garten

 The old water tank having been removed, the previous day.

Anyone fancy a 40+ ton game of  "Jenga"!

 

 

 

 

                             Out with the old in with the new. 

The full story and due thanks to all those involved will no doubt appear in the next edition of

 Strathspey Express. I wonder how long it will be before the S&T Dept get round to commissioning the attached signal and associated interlocking?  

Midweek Fishplate oiling 24/04/14

 

 Today we started the Springtime Fishplate oiling at Boat of Garten Down Home signal, heading towards Aviemore, we were advised that we were to do the outside-nuts and here's me thinking we ARE the outside-nuts! To explain that each 60foot length of rail is joined to the next with a fishplate with 4 nuts and bolts, which need to be partially unbolted sufficiently so that we can pour track lube onto the fishing surfaces of the plates to lubricate them to allow for expansion/contraction of the rail. Then bolt it all up again so that it's all tight, the nuts alternate at each joint, so every 120feet needs to be done, only 5miles to do! this is not the most exciting job on the Pway but passing traffic and the wonderful weather kept us amused, in total we managed about 3/4 of a mile.

 

 

 

11.04 Royal Scotsman ECS move to Aviemore 

 

 

 

 1.10 Broomhill- Aviemore pass the "squad"

 

 

 

I believe that tomorrow the old water tank is to be removed by the rail mounted 12tonne crane, so next time I am down there should be a space here.



PWay on Dulnain Extension 5/6 April 2014

Two "Muscle" Men, one wearing their high-viz in an unusual way!

The  trusty "Muscle Man" has served us for years of trouble free use and is used to slew the track horizontally.

With Georgie up high in the Road-Railer doing the sighting




  

The star of the show must be the recently fully refurbished/serviced "Jacker Packer", which hydraulically lifts the track and squeezes the ballast under individual sleepers and don't worry it does need copious amounts of ballast fed to it, just to keep us fit you understand! another 200 Tonnes on order I believe.



The Jacker Packer in action