On the level!

Another day of volunteering at the Rocks by Rail Museum yesterday. On entering the site I noted that the two gunpowder wagons that I talked about in a post at the start of November - click here to see it - had been split from each other and moved. One is to be a store for wood and the other a store for one of the loco preservation groups that use the site to store and work on their locomotives. 

The weather was bright but cold so some physical work was just the ticket to keep warm! That work turned out to be some track maintenance work involving ballast. Not digging it out this time but using it to level the track itself. On model railways the secret to reliable running is to ensure that your track is laid flat and level. That applies to real railways too. It is just that the physical effort to get the real track level is somewhat greater than that needed on a model railway as my back can testify!

The process is fairly simple in that there is a sighting board set up at two points and you then use a third sighting board to see whether the track needs to be raised or lowered. No high tech laser sights or theodolites - this is all done with the Mark 1 Eyeball! The picture shows one of the fixed sighting boards and there is another about 200 yards down the track. You look across the top of the cross piece of this fixed board and the cross piece of the third board should line up between the two fixed boards. If it doesn't then the track needs raising or lowering accordingly.

We knew that the track bed had settled over the years and that is no surprise when you have 20 to 30 tons of train trundling over it on a regular basis, so it was just a question of raising the track to the right level. It was at this point I was introduced to the delights of man handling 15 ton jacks which my back was delighted about! These are placed under each rail.

At 15 ton capacity these jacks are powerful and it doesn't take much effort to get the rail to lift. Further work with the sighting boards and spirit level gets the track to the point it needs to be. At this point it is then about getting ballast under the sleepers to pack them into their new position. Network Rail probably have a £15M track maintenance train just for that purpose. At the Museum we have a £150 Kango hammer! It does the job though and although hard work it is not too long before you can tell that the packing of the ballast has worked as the jacks become loose as the weight of the track is taken off them.

No day at the Museum would be complete without Riley the dog being on hand!

Whilst we were at it a bit of work on one of the track joints was carried out replacing a fishplate and bolts as the old one was showing signs of aging - just like my back!.

As with all such work it is very necessary but when there are only a few of you it takes time so I will level up with you and say that I am probably going to be doing this for a while yet!