Decking The Dulnain Bridge - 3rd & 4th October 2015

 

 

Before the Winter weather comes, the opportunity was taken to finally deck the Dulnain Rail Bridge properly, using the kindly donated Douglas Fir timber from the BSW sawmill at Boat of Garten, that was used as a temporary safety deck, away back in February 2014.

 

John Wood lent us his mitre saw and it was invaluable in squaring the previous temporary boards and cutting them to exact length, before screwing down onto the bespoke cut & notched bearers. The power came from the large generator in the Brake Guard Van (BG) fortunately the weather was at least dry.

 

 

Usual Worker to Watcher ratio! Neil Howie trying to make up for it, by taking a paint brush for a walk whilst simultaneously load testing the Up Walkway. 2/3rds of the cess walkway completed on the Saturday.

 

 

Depleted squad on the Sunday, greeted by a cool 1 degree C but fine dry and sunny later, all worked very hard to almost complete the job (few hundred screws still to screw down)

 

 

Some statistics - 140 boards - 4.2m x 75mm x 150mm of treated timber and in excess of 600 fixings, so far. 

Some of you may get a closer look on the 7th November when the DMU is hopefully running on to the bridge as part of the Strathspey Railway Association AGM day.

 

 

The Saturday gang.

 

Thanks again to John Wood for photos and info.

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 





Re-placing Baseplates - Broomhill - 19th September 2015

 

Smaller squad than usual, due to the Strathspey Railway Company Annual General Meeting brought beautiful late Summer weather, I was envious!

 

 

 

Here Angus, Stuart and Andy before they do battle removing elastic spikes, from the normal baseplates, to replace them with the L C type, every third one on high rail and both sides at the joints. In an effort to prevent any gauge widening issues in the future.

 

 

An L C baseplate closest to joint, from this Blog exactly one year ago!

 

 

A welcome break as 46512 "runs round". In total about 600 feet was completed with the old baseplates being re-used, to replace the broken ones (over exuberant use of the hammer during attempted spike removal) during our major re-sleepering exercise of recent times.

Thanks to John Wood for photos and info. 

 

 

 

Re-sleepering continues - 5th & 6th September 2015

A decent squad of 8 continued un-spiking, changing and repacking sleepers yesterday

 

 

Above left, Andy McClintock and Neil Howie crouching (arm anonymous!)

 

 

 

The field opposite a new calf was born, will leave the video nasty out! Thanks to John Wood for info and photo. In all about 30 sleepers were readied for today's gauging, drilling and ballasting.

 

 

Today was Andy McClintock's Birthday (a young 78!) so we gave him a relatively easy job, above and fed him with cake in the afternoon.

 

 

Not many cows today, although plenty of trains gave us a welcome break as it was roasting, here the class 31 hauls the service train back from Broomhill as

 

"The Strathspey Clansman" Sunday Lunch Dining Train (which I believe was fully booked) had the pleasure of Steam haulage as usual.

 

 

Got to mention Bruce Buswell who hails from "East Somerset Railway" extreme right, who did a grand job boxing in the sleepers with ballast and Kevin Morris (walking away from camera) from Big Railway PWay in the Leicester area. Your presence much appreciated,  thank you Guys and safe journeys all the way home. 

 

 

And one final train, to try and catch us out was a special actually heading to Broomhill to collect passengers from "Motor Mania" in Grantown on Spey. In all I guess maybe 30 sleepers were completed but emphasis was on quality not quantity!

 

 

 

 

 



August PWay 2015

 

 

The lack of recent PWay Blog update does not mean that nothing has been happening on the PWay, quite the contrary, just that I've been on holiday!

 

Re-sleepering continued on 1st of August, with a creditable 28 changed until the drill bit got blunt. The following PWay weekend Saturday -Georgie was on holiday and a large squad managed to dig out 50 plus sleepers to beyond Tullochgorum overbridge once the heavy rain stopped, above Martin Macleod left and Jim Clark "resting" for the camera.

 

 

Norman Cameron heading under Tullochgorum overbridge towards Boat of Garten on his Track Patrol from Broomhill. Thanks to John Wood for the photos. 

 

 

On the Sunday there were only two of us, so we decided to continue freshening up the concrete mileposts between Boat of Garten and Aviemore. Above Andy McClintock as 46512 speeds past (hence blurring, honest) This consisted of scraping of the old flaking paint, liberally applying the white concrete masonry paint, let us hope the paint lives up to it's 25 year guarantee!

 

 

Some easier to find than others, above is the 86 mile post, which we will definitely need to chop down the surrounding vegetation when we come to repainting the numbers black.



Spot re-sleepering 89 3/4 mile post - 4th July 2015

 

Very heavy rain on the drive from Inverness did not bode well

 

 

but by the time we got the tools to the site and the first train from Aviemore (46512 unexpectedly tender first) had passed the weather began to clear up.

 

 

Jack up track, lift base plates, remove what's left of old sleeper, dig out bed and above replace with new sleeper. (Angus could have managed but I wanted John and Neil in photo)

 

 

base plates back in, drop jacks

 

 

Then team two lift and pack sleeper 

 

 

gauge checked, for drilling above then hammer in the spikes, tidy ballast REPEAT..........

 

In total I believe a credible 28 completed which takes us to "Fishermans Crossing" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 



Start on spot Re-Sleepering from 89 3/4 mile post - 20th June 2015

An excellent turnout again meant in theory - "many hands make light work!"

In practice it was a different story but good progress was made through teamwork.

 

 

One team dug out all the ballast round the sleepers to be changed, which we started with great gusto but soon learned to pace ourselves and

 

 

 

the other, tackled the unenviable task of removing the elastic spikes from the base plates, using the spike puller and increasingly, not so gentle persuasion from a large hammer hitting down on the plate to try and free the spike. During the day a hammer, a spike puller and a number of base plates were destroyed with a lot of huffing and puffing along the way.

 

 

Service train approaches Lackgie level crossing, an Osprey was also allegedly spotted over the River Spey, entirely possible as Loch Garten RSPB Reserve only mile and half away as Osprey flies! Sorry no photos on this occasion but we are likely to be re-sleepering for some time as there are only166 to replace...........

 

 

Boat of Garten Headshunt recommissioned - 6th June 2015

Good to see some "new" faces in the squad - Steven who returns after a 30 year break! And Angus who hopefully, is still "Jim's friend", after Jim convinced him to come along.
Whilst the Headshunt has been disconnected the opportunity was taken to do some re-sleepering in the yard and yesterday morning our squad was large enough to split in two.

 

 

One squad drilling, screwing down and gauging the already changed sleepers, notice the light rail, wooden keys and some very old rail chairs. The other squad cutting and dropping in the remaining rails at the buffer end of headshunt using the JCB (360 Road Railer still sick).

 

 

Mike thinks he spots a rather inaccessible lost golf ball, to add to his collection

 

 

but alas, no, a baby woodpecker!

 

 

The remainder of day was spent packing and tidying up the formation. 

 

 

 

With the odd welcome break, look closely and you can see the G clamps holding the fishplates securely until the rail drill is mended. Notice where Fergus finished off doing a very neat job of creating the Cess (walkway) a few weeks ago. Meanwhile Georgie was reconnecting the Signalling equipment, it's now finally ready for traffic again.