Isle of Wight Steam Railway

December 2006

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our Readers

Well it is here again, that festive time of year, Santa Specials are running and I hope you are more organised than I am and have got your Christmas presents bought and wrapped up, your turkey stuffed and the sprouts boiling away ready for the 25th! According to the P.Way cookery book sprouts should be boiled for at least 3 weeks before any attempt is made to eat them.

We are now into holiday mode with Pete having a well-earned week off and Phil will be having a two-week break over the festive season. We will obviously be providing cover for operating days over the whole period and either Pete or myself will be in attendance on running days until January 1st.

The excitement of the tamping has died down for a while but as you will read later on not all the work has yet been completed and a little work is required in the New Year.

So it only remains for me to thank everyone involved during the year working within our department, both staff and volunteers. I know I say the same things ever year but it is fact that without you, the volunteer, we the staff would find it an impossible task to get through the workload. The working weekends and Friday clearance gangs provide a fantastic service to the railway and the productivity produced during these times really does give the civil engineering department a tremendous boost. Many a sleeper changing session or bank clearance would not happen if not for you, so thank you all.

Here's wishing you all a super Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

Christmas Diary Date - December 21st
Volunteers & Staff Christmas get together at Granny Winters
4.30pm (After train services finish)
Festive Buffet and Drinks
Hope to see you there if you can make it.

January Working Weekend Sat 6th/7th December

With the New Year comes the burble of brushcutters and the crackling of a good old log fire. This is what is on the cards for the first working weekend of 2007. We have made a good start on the fencing work in Rowlands Wood and we will continue with this work between now and the New Year but there may still be a little work to be completed on this section. To compliment this work we hope to field another gang to work on Ashey Grounds crossing to upgrade the fencing and area around the gates. This work was highlighted last winter when we fenced along the lineside but unfortunately we never did get back to complete it so now is the chance. If we can muster lots of troops over this weekend we may also get stuck into the last bit of massive growth and scrub that remains to be cleared on the north side of the line on Ashey Grounds. This is being tackled as we speak by our intrepid Saturday gang of John Crang and Paul Scott who are doing very well but if we are to get the new fence up by the start of the running season we will need to get the fence line cleared quickly.

So plenty to do and lots of exercise to burn of the extra pounds put on over Christmas. A nice warm fire will be lit hopefully to keep the January chill at bay. Hope to see as many of you as possible and once again a few festive treats will be on hand to have with you cups of tea.

What's been going on?

December Working Weekend -Rowlands Woods scrub clearance and fence post fitting
Rowlands Fencing and Clearance goes great guns

A large team gave their services as we made a start on the clearance and prep work for new fences running from Rowlands Bridge towards Smallbrook. These fences will connect with new ones put up last winter that run to the edge of Rowlands Woods from the bridle crossing. Work started on Saturday with clearance tools and brushcutters used to clear scrub from the Havenstreet end by Rowlands Bridge. As the growth was only a years worth progress was quite swift but sadly brushcutter problems soon cut down the amount of machines being used. By lunch time a good section of lineside had been cleared thus allowing a gang of post pounders to form after refreshments had been taken and they proceeded to beat the wooden post into the sodden ground at record speed.

Dave Walker and Pete Corby at work on Guildford Crossing.

By the finish of play due mainly to bad light we had fence posts on the south side right through to the old crossing almost two thirds of the way along the total stretch and clearance done just as far on both sides. Excellent work by all involved. The plan was to return the next day to continue but the weather on Sunday took a big turn for the worse with heavy rain and gales pounding the Island. Our first consideration was for the safety of the line and therefore an inspection of the line was organised first thing undertaken by the smaller gang using the Permaquip trolley. Thankfully no obstructions were found along the railway and after returning to Havenstreet a cup of tea was taken. I went off to take a trip along the line on the first passenger train after tamping to assess the ride whilst the gang went off to Guildford Crossing to replace rotten edging timbers and reinstate the surface and grids after the tamping work.

Replacing the cattle grids.

The rain having put us off the Rowlands job as we had no shelter nor did we fancy splashing around the huge puddles of standing water on the banks in this area. After lunch a first for most of the gang was achieved as we all went oiling and greasing on the S&T equipment. Usually this job needs doing at quarterly intervals and is done by the weekday team as and when we can find the time. This means it usually takes a few days of a bit here and a bit there but with such a large gang the whole Havenstreet site was done in an afternoon. Everybody seemed to enjoy the novelty of this job and we will try to organise a few more outings like this for the weekend gangs when we can. Thanks to everyone for a weekend's work well done, even though the weather meant a change to advertised activities, it was a super job.

Watching the trains go by!

Robin Tagart man-handles a leaning post into position

What's else has been going on?

Activities over the last month have been dominated understandably by the coming of the tamper. I have written an article for the IRN and IWR website which I have sent to the relevant people to deal with so I won't go into any great detail in this issue as you will almost certainly read about it in other ways. Suffice to say that the work went extremely well and I have been very impressed with the tampers' performance and the finish article. I must say that writing down slues and lifts in front of the tamper was quite worrying, we had slues of 30 or 40 mm to the left that suddenly changed to similar slues the other way. Likewise lifts kept changing with variations of anything up to 60 or 70mm at times. What on earth will this look like at the back of the machine I thought, even Dennis Rapley who organised the design work with his son, Adam, was worried at times as the changes were so dramatic but it came out perfectly. The line was faultless and the alignment on straights was quite brilliant, the only problem came with sections where level crossings occurred. We could not achieve line or level requirements on most crossings as it would have meant taking the crossing out completely and that was not an option at locations like Whitefield! So we had to put together local schemes so the level and line was brought to zero at the crossing and then built up again after it. This is a compromise which is OK but leaves the line looking a little strange, as the level crossing is low giving a bit of a lurch on the train and the alignment does look a little off. For instance Woodhouse crossing needed a 60mm slue and similar lift but got nothing, this is bound to show! If in the fullness of time we can get removable section crossings in at the most awkward ones we may well be able to address this situation and get the whole line looking good.

Dave Walker controls a ballasting run through the loop at Wootton.

Ballast train operations over the period went well and I am indebted to several volunteers that came out and helped with the works. We ordered 700 tons of limestone ballast from Island Aggregates at Cowes, these being the people we got the stone from for the extension. It got to the Island by ship from North Wales and was not without problems, when it first started arriving at the barnyard it was too big, many lumps being far bigger than we wanted or could deal with. I stopped the deliveries whilst we got things sorted out with the manager but I must say they were excellent and re-screened and crushed the stone to the correct size we wanted. All the ballasting went well and we are quite well off for ballast at most places. We will get more regulating done in the New Year and once this is done we will need to go out and fill any empty beds but this will be quite easy with the new larger trolley we have available with La-La.

Most of the other work we have done since tamping has been to do with clearing up work associated with these major works. We had to remove all grids from crossings and a lot of S&T equipment over the whole line to facilitate the tamping process or to stop equipment being smashed. After the Lord Mayors show, so the saying goes, comes the need to put it all back, not only that but points need to be adjusted as the slueing process moves track close to the switches and throws the adjustment out. We also had a track circuit bonding broken that needed replacement and an S&T fitting smashed as the regulator hit it in error. Bob Foster was brilliant and helped us immensely by welding up the item for us before he went on Friday 24th November. We refitted the equipment and made sure all was well before trains started running on the 3rd December. A few days have been spent doing a post tamp survey using our wooden pegs to see what was achieved and whether the design was made or an interim level and line achieved. A couple of bad joints have already been given another lift to give a better ride and a few more still need to be done. No rest for the wicked!

The Tamper on the Long Curve, Wootton section.

The Friday gang continue to make their presence felt on the lineside banks even though the weather has been lousy lately and also tampers and ballast trains have been getting in their way. The Wootton-Havenstreet section has been completed with the banks looking a picture, their attention has now been directed to the slip area at Havenstreet and a visit to Smallbrook is planned in the not to distant future, I believe. As an added bonus Santa has just delivered 3 new brushcutters to replace worn out ones so Rob's Razors can have a good old razz over the festive period.

November 2006
Hello there and welcome to the November issue of Trackpack, written just before we start the tamping of the line. The multitude of jobs that were required before the tamping have, in the main, been done and I am amazed at what has been achieved. Much of this work will be explained later in this Trackpack so I won't labour the point here, but I will just give an extra thank you for all those who have taken part. Not all things have run smoothly however, and the 700 tons of ballast has still to arrive, so the planned week of ballast trains has not yet happened but should occur this coming week with the boat due to dock at East Cowes on the 13th November. The Ballast Regulator is here arriving a little earlier than expected whereas the tamper has actually been delayed a week due to the Bluebell not releasing it until week commencing 13th Nov. We are now expecting to ballast and regulate from Wednesday 15th and hopefully with the tamper due on the 15th /16th we should be ready to start proper on Friday 17th. So, that is the update so far lets hope all goes well and by next month's Santa Specials we should have a super infrastructure for our trains to travel on.

The Tamper arriving at Havenstreet on 15th November.

December Working Weekend Sat 2nd/3rd December

With so much work on the track having being carried out in the last few months we should be able to get on with a few other jobs during December and January. We intend to get moving on the clearing and fencing work in Rowlands Woods in December. As stated in last months Trackpack we have a quantity of wooden fence posts laid out ready for use and this will be one of the jobs during this working weekend. Much of the growth is only a years worth and will not take long to clear with brushcutters but there are also several trees that will need to come down which are growing in the fence line or growing at dangerous angles. Once this is done we will get the fence posts in and start running wires. The droppers will have to wait until January when we will get a delivery of fencing materials from Corries at Petersfield. As trains will be running on Sunday we will make the most of Saturdays unfettered access and hope that Sunday is kind to us, weatherwise, as we will have no covered accommodation. Many hands make light work so I hope as many of you as possible can make it for our pre-Christmas bash and as usual we will have a few seasonal treats to enjoy with our cups of tea. Please muster at the usual time at Havenstreet to select the brushcutter of your choice and marvel at the super smooth track on the way to our work site (hopefully).

The Ballast Train at Wootton on the Sunday of the October Working weekend.

What's been going on?

November Working Weekend -Spent sleepers and fallen leaves cleared from lineside
Rubbish Reclamation Reaps Rewards in Railway Respectability

After several weeks of sleeper changing we had to deal with the by-product over the working weekend, moving large quantities of dead sleepers back to Havenstreet. After a few problems with starting our vehicle fleet on Saturday's frosty start we managed to get the Wickham going first, so leaving Phil to sort La-La out we went off to Wootton to pick up the first batch of used sleepers.

The spent sleepers accumulate in Griffins Field.

After filling up with a full load it was back to Havenstreet to unload. By this time Phil had got La-La going and we split up into two gangs, one team carried on with the Wickham whilst the other larger team went off to Long Arch to gather the 100 or so used sleepers that had been taken out from the bridge hole. After the Wickham team had gathered all the Wootton section's used sleeper's they made a start at clearing some of the thick carpet of fallen leaves around Bridge 12. Blowers were used to move leaves into piles where they were loaded into rubbish bags and taken to Havenstreet for burning. Although a slow process it is worth while doing before tamping to cut down on the contamination of the ballast by leaf debris. Meanwhile the La-La team made two trips with a very large quantity of sleepers both times. Large piles of sleepers were to accumulate in Griffins field as the day wore on as we sorted them into 3 different grades, good, middling and down right rubbish.

The Ballast Train Team - Dave Walker, Ianin Whitlam, Mark Flynn, Ian Corney, Dave Smith and Mike Lightbown.

Sunday saw a smaller team on ballast train duties. An early shunt got the train ready to load and was soon ready for the first trip up to Wootton to drop fresh ballast from the points down towards Packsfield, this was spread by using the Shark brake van, which worked very well. Once empty it was back to Havenstreet to load again and this was the order of the day until supplies of fresh ballast ran out having gone as far as the bottom of the long curve. We then put the train away and ran the locomotive light to Long Arch to do a clearance test after our works there. A quick trip back ended the day and another excellent working weekend, well done all.

P Way Manager Dave Walker takes a keen interest during a ballast drop by the Wootton Home signal.

What's else has been going on?

All the survey pegs are now in and ready to be used when checking the work done by the tamper. A massive number of new sleepers have been put into the line and although there are still have more in stock, we have run out of time to change anymore. Nevertheless we estimate that over 300 sleepers have been changed since the October working weekend and this has been a fantastic achievement.

Re-ballasting at the country end of Long Arch - It's a long time since we've managed to feature a picture of Robin Tagart in supervisory mode, unfortunately this time he didn't have a shovel to lean on!

The sleeper changing and track lowering exercise in Long Arch has gone very well, 96 new, mainly hardwood sleepers have been fitted to 4 panels of 60ft track. This has replaced all the timber in the bridge and immediately outside both ends and should be good for at least 30 to 40 years. The ballast was removed from the bridge by Kevin Cooley using his digger and his expertise in levelling the formation was, as usual brilliant. Once ready the track was replaced and the ballast back filled using powered wheelbarrows. The small team worked extremely hard over these four days and my thanks go to all those who took part in this very worthwhile but physically demanding job. Great job, well done.

The lower track level is very apparent in the Long Arch.

The Friday gang continues to make large strides down the banks from Wootton to Havenstreet clearing the summer growth and making everything look neat and tidy. They are now within sight of Havenstreet with work passed Bridge 12 and progressing well.

October 2006
Welcome to the October issue of Trackpack, which is being written from the comfort of my home whilst I enjoy a day off from the rigors of our labours at the railway. As stated in the last Trackpack we have embarked on a major work programme to prepare for the visit of the tamper in November. This involves a complete survey of the line, measuring at 10 metre intervals from one end to the other. Theodolite and/or string line plotting of the line and level throughout and recording. Survey pegs will be put in on the whole line to the position of track at present so that when the tamper arrives designed lifts and slues can be checked whilst work is in progress. A large quantity of ballast is required for the machine to produce a good job; lifts can only be achieved if enough stone is in place to provide the base for the sleepers to sit on. Finally there is the small job of fitting 300 new sleepers in the track before the tamper arrives. It is very much better to fit the sleepers before tamping as the machine does a far better job of packing the ballast hard under the sleepers than we can do with hand tools or even Kango's. And in the afternoon we will be doing……….."

Long Arch Re-Sleepering October 30th-November 1st

Again as stated in the last Trackpack we have a major project to complete before tamping which is the total re-sleeper of Long Arch bridge with hardwood sleepers. This work was scheduled for the working weekend of the 4th/5th November but due to our plant operator being unavailable we have opted to bring the job forward to the above dates. The job will proceed as soon as train services are finished on Sunday 29th October with a possession being taken on the Smallbrook single line. We aim to remove track and old sleepers first thing Monday morning, then whilst hardwood sleepers arrive at site the rail chairs will be transferred from old to new and the worn sleepers loaded on trolley's for removal. Meanwhile Kev and digger will dig out the old ballast level and hopefully manage to pile ballast at either side in the bridge and prepare the base for the new sleepers. Once site prep is done we will employ Kev to move rails back into the bridge and move back and forth carrying sleepers for us to place and space before rail replacement. Once track is in place then ballast will need to be placed back into the four-foot ready for track levelling and fettling. The good thing about doing this job before the tamper arrives is that the final lifting and slueing can be left to the machine to carry out. All we have to do is make sure the track is safe for passage through the bridge of engineer's trains. Sounds a piece of cake…..

Now if you can help in this little exercise then I would love to hear from you. I have already had some offers of help from a few but the more the merrier so don't be shy, come and help if you can, a warm welcome and an even warmer cup of tea await any interested parties.

November Working Weekend Sat 4th/5th November

Now with the Long Arch job just a few days before we may have some work to complete such as clearing up and such like but the main job planned this weekend will be ballast trains and possibly still some re-sleepering. At the moment it is impossible to predict how things will pan out. If we have the ballast to use and if we can find the staff needed to provide the train crew and Bray driver we will get going with it. As the time progresses towards the working weekend I will have a much better idea of what is required and the various fronts and what to get everyone to do. Another job may arise which may mean a trip overseas to collect material but this is all hush-hush at the moment and it may or may not happen. Sorry to be so vague and secretive on this one but I can't be any more specific at the moment.

Ballast Trains All Week November 6th to 10th

A Full Week Of Ballast Trains!

Following on from the working weekend on which we may have started ballasting we hope to continue by running two trains, one AM and one PM to spread the 700 tons of ballast on order to prepare the track for tamping. The full week may be a bit shorter if we have managed to get any out over the weekend. Our train has a capacity of around 60 tons so I have asked the suppliers to send in 120 tons per day until the 700 tons have been delivered. Along with what we have in stock already this should give us a full 5 days of trains. Again I have some offers of help for these trains but we need a few chaps to help with hopper operations and shark ballast plough duties. There may also be some shovelling needed in places! Anyone wishing to be involved please let me know by the usual methods.

What's been going on?

October Working Weekend -Sleeper renewals from Havenstreet to Ashey
Working Weekenders Work Wonders With Whopping Workload

A large number of defaced sleepers had appeared recently along the lineside sprayed by a crazed graffiti artist signing his name with a yellow cross in the middle of the timber. To counter this unforgivable behaviour and to implement the zero tolerance policy we employ towards graffiti artists we have replaced all these sleepers between Havenstreet and Ashey with new!

The sleeper changing gang at Ashey - (L to R) Pete Corby, Phil Boxall, Stuart Duddy, Roger Lang and Paul Scott.

Thankfully after a week of rain the weekend proved to be extremely pleasant and a gang of working weekenders numbered enough to split into two separate gangs to hit the re-sleepering at two positions. A start was made just east of Havenstreet and also near the outer home signal. The ballast surrounding the sleepers had all been dug out on this section thanks to our intrepid Saturday gang of John Crang and Paul Scott. Their hard work over the previous few weeks made the re-sleepering job much easier and quicker.

Paul Scott - demon pick-axe wealder.

Progress was swift with a cup of tea taken at Rowlands Lane Bridge we pressed on around the curve towards Ashey. After lunch the gangs carried on albeit a little slower as we had run out of prepared sleepers and now had to dig them out for ourselves. A large quantity around the crossing at Ashey station slowed progress at little. The last sleepers going in just on the Smallbrook side of the crossing before a non-expert driven trip back to Havenstreet. A count up on the way back confirmed my suspicions that excellent progress had been made with a total of 58 sleepers having been changed during the day.

Phill Boxall, Roger Lang and Stuart Duddy about to slide a sleeper into place.

Sunday was to see a smaller gang pile into the company van for a trip to Ashey by road to continue where we had left off the previous day. As trains were running progress was a little slower but a very commendable total of 20 more sleepers were added to the weekends total and an advance party had succeeded in digging out another 20 plus sleepers for the next bash. So an excellent working weekend was had by all and may I thank all of the volunteers and staff for a brilliant start to our target of 300 sleepers in by the end of the month. Well done all!

The way is prepared for another sleeper - but it's all too much for Pete Corby!

What's else has been going on?

Most of the work in the last month has been to do with the survey work for tamping. The measuring of the line took a few days to complete and then doing theodolite straights and hallade surveying of the curves used up many more days, along with holidays for both Pete and myself. The survey work has produced a book full of figures, which have been fed into a computer, and a programme churns away and gives us another set of figures which will put the track into the correct position both for line and level. We then mark these lifts and slues at the appropriate positions so the tamper operators can act on them and bingo we have the perfect track. Well not quite as simply as that because you have to make sure the tamper has enough ballast to do what you want it to do.

Once the survey work was done we made a start on putting survey pegs in and working steadily along the line. We have now got all the Wootton single line done and have got enough pegs produced to complete the Smallbrook section over the next few days. 280 new sleepers arrived from South Wales on the 19th September by Mike Lightbown's lorry and we immediately started getting them laid out on the lineside. We still have around 140 stored in Griffins sidings which we will use once all the sleepers have been put in the line that are already laid out.

Just before we got the delivery of sleepers we laid