Track Pack - April 2011

Gutenharge mien Herr, velcome to a German flavoured Trackpack in tribute to our vorld famous Friday Globetrotting Gang, whose exploits in deepest Germany vill be told, no doubt, in a publication far superior to this one at a later date. 

Villicome to another edition of Trackpack, ve have been very busy of late in a number of areas and have really got into operational mode now as trains are running most days during April to cover the 40th Anniversary celebrations along with Easter and Bank holiday’s. Our first major event starts next weekend with the Busitval, in partnership with Southern Vectis and the Bus Museum. Read on for all the latest news and views from the Civil Engineering team, and don’t tell them your name Pike! Dankershern.

 April / May 2011 Working Weekend - Sat 30th April / Sun 1st May / Mon  2nd May

 What a stroke of luck, the working weekend coincides with the spring bank holiday Real Ale festival!! How does that happen every year? If we have to tear ourselves away from the bar, this is what we will be doing.

We have a new section of fence to put up at Havenstreet, from the road bridge (Bridge 9) down the side of Mr & Mrs Bowman’s property alongside the road. This has been neglected for years and still has a lot of tree stumps and debris to be cleared first. As it is not alongside the railway we will put chestnut posts in with stock wire and a couple of high tensile wires along the top to finish off. That should take care of Saturday. On Sunday and Monday we have a couple of other jobs, providing we have a supply of concrete fence posts from Bob and Ollie we will move on to Deacons Lane Bridge and install the fencing on the road sides and also a fence running down the wing wall on the Ryde side that we uncovered and found to be wanting at the last bash there. We are assured that there will be fence posts available so we can do at least some of this work there.

We also have a bit more fishplate greasing to do at Smallbrook and Wootton and this could form part of Monday’s activities and in Griffin’s field we still have piles of undergrowth and tree branches that have been waiting for burning. If the weather is suitable we may have a bonfire to get rid of some of this debris. So, plenty to keep us occupied during the day before heading to the beer tent to sample some of the delight’s that Derek has in store for us at the Real Ale festival.

It sounds like a fun weekend for all, do hope you can help out.  

 What’s been going on?

Lots of Lifting, Lining and Leaf Litter Lashing 

 Last months working weekend consisted of a train free Saturday and trains running on Sunday so the work fell into two categories. Saturday was on-track plant day with two teams formed to make the most of the day. First team out and onto the Smallbrook single line was the Wickham Trolley and a trailer that had the new leaf blowing machine and collection bin attached. This proceeded up towards Rowlands Lane Bridge to started work where it had left off earlier in the week. Years of leaf litter had accumulated in this area and had to be cleared, not an easy task even with our new machine, because it is very wet underneath the dry top layer of leaves and is difficult to pick up and causes blockages in the pipe work. The team also used blowers to work leaf litter down the track into piles for the sucker to clear and blast up the banks. Progress was good during the day and by the close they had reached almost to the outer home signal (No 1). Considering how much debris there was on this section this was a very good effort by all involved. Meanwhile another team consisting of La-La and the BLH mini tamping machine worked on the Havenstreet slip area to correct the usual slump in track level over a long section of this embankment. Working to a scheme using theodolite levels the track was lifted and packed with stone already dropped from a ballast train. Shovelling the stone to fill beds then took place to leave a nice tidy look to the area. On Sunday we continued work on the slip area by slewing the track in many places to try to get a good alignment where we had packed the previous day. Several pushes were required in some places to get a reasonable look to the curve, all before trains started running.

After returning to Havenstreet and a cup of coffee we got the fishplate greasing equipment out and started to oil the plates round the station area at Havenstreet. Working between trains we managed to do all the required plates by the time our mainland and overseas visitors had to retire to pack bags for the return trip.

Thanks to all for their help and assistance over the weekend, we achieved a great deal and it was good to see you all. For your further education and enjoyment, Pete Snashall has kindly uploaded a video of  completely uncensored Working Weekend Action onto You Tube.

 What else has been going on?

 Lots of work on estates again this month with the main grass growing season in full swing we have been grass cutting in all locations and another season brings with it one of our favourite jobs, marquee erecting. We finally got the new hydraulic pump for the BLH machine so could start on an urgent lifting and packing programme to get some of the PW defects off the books before the main part of the season.

We have had a job to do at Havenstreet which seem to have taken a long time, the summer house (posh name for shed) to house the 40th anniversary display has only just been finished after several days of fitting out and painting, looking splendid in house colours in now sits proudly outside the AV room complete with display.

The Friday Gang continue to replace the fence at Ashey and are progressing very well, they should be finished within the next few weeks and then move on to tackle the quickly growing banks with their weapons of choice.

 After cutting back many tree and saplings on the roadside near Havenstreet Bridge during the road closure we have had a few days of burning but there is still a huge pile still to be disposed off.

 Hope to see some of you over the working weekend later this month; we will have a pint after work in the beer tent as per usual and a jolly good natter.

 Well that’s your lot for now.

 All the best

 Auf Weitersen 

 Dave, Pete, Phil and Ian.