Permanent Way News

The pway world has taken in various tasks over the recent few weeks. This reporter was away on holiday for the last part of October and for early November so I'll start from the middle of November. A trackwork day saw us cutting rails and fitting a block joint just past the country end of Ropley station as part of S and T dept's masterplan. November gives almost unrestricted access to the track as there are usually no train movements, so we have been out and about replacing broken sleeper chairs mainly to the south of Ropley. Copious jacking and packing activities have been undertaken, mainly in Sun Lane cutting, but with other areas around Medstead receiving attention, we have also been distributing ballast around the railway. Northside Lane bridge has now been detreed, if thats a proper word, on its north face and on the retaining walls. Fencing matters have seen us in action behind Ropley Manor and now the cows have been kept out or loco dept have been kept in - you choose the answer!. Our final task for this year - apart from the Christmas lunch at Alresford, for which many thanks - was to assist in the move of a wheelset from Alton to Alresford. You may not be surprised to ...

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September has seen us return to one of our more usual tasks, namely jacking and packing. We have been out and about in our Wickham trolley and have been packing track joints at Hampshire Hunt, Alton station,and by the carriage works at Ropley. In addition a fair amount of track raising has been done on the sidings near Alton. A large amount of chalk has been shipped from the new water tower work at Alresford to the siding area near Medstead to await more track jacking - just the job to do in the November rains!. A bit of tree cutting has been needed to remove debris resulting from the autumn winds.

We have also been out and about bringing light and good cheer to others. Sperry Rail at Havant have been visited to install some track with different faults built in, such as oversize bolt holes or defective welding. These are used to train the ultrasonic equipment operators to recognise faulty track. A pleasant day was had by all much helped by the provision of tea and Penguin biscuits, this months picture shows the team taking lunch in the sunshine at Havant.

Finally just when we thought that all was finished we have been back again to Southall, this time t...

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August has been a rather mixed month for us as with trains running each day access to the track has been somewhat restricted. We started the month off by removing a large tree that had been blown down across the running lines by the boiler works at Ropley before moving on to one of our favourite jobs - fishplate oiling. Our next task was the traditional raising of the banner at Ropley for the Thomas event - managed to get it the correct way both up and round ! and the placememt of the various signs and notices. The Monday of Thomas week saw us at Alresford replacing sleepers at the country end of the station and then our gang went off in various directions. Some did our normal buggy park duties and the remainder were back off to Southall.

This tranche of work was mainly worn out ( to use the kindest description that springs to mind ) sleeper replacement. Over 110 of these were dug out and replaced with new ones together with the relaying and aligning of the track. A large amount of this involved breaking concrete away from the track and chairs before the wooden keys could be hammered out so progress was somewhat slow. During this period a turnout from the former BR ...

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June has seen us operating at full strength, well nearly anyway, back on the Watercress Line. Mondays, which normally do not have any train movements !, are our day for track work and to that end we have been replacing sleepers and adjusting pointwork at Alresford and at Ropley yard. Today has been spent at Medstead where we have jacked up the rails and packed ballast under the sleepers on the long siding that runs on the southside of the running line towards Ropley. Our other trackwork task has been replacing more chair keys with panlocs - there is a picture at the end of this showing track with the chair key in the forground and the panloc behind it.

ON other parts of the railway tasks have involved removing large branches that had been blown onto the track, and on to adjoining properties, as a result of the strong winds in June and we have also been busy at Alresford clearing the bank behind the cattle dock and removing a large root that was discovered to be causing a problem for the building group and their Alresford water tank project.

Richard

Questions have been asked recently as to where we have been for the last couple of months, surely the railway can’t have missed us!. Well the answer is that most of us have been working at Southall Steam Centre on a secondment from Meadsted. We have been at the former Southall shed – 81C – which is now home to Bittern and other locos of the Hoskings collection,  and we have been replacing worn out wooden sleepers, relaying track, and generally tidying up and improving the site. The picture attached shows the old water tower end of the site with Norman and the boys preparing the trackbed for relaying the head shunt.

Anyway normal service has now been resumed at Meadsted so you will see us out and about on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Not a lot to report as we continue a clean-up around the railway. Despite today's rain we still managed to sort a load of aluminium and a load of steel for recycling. The inclement weather does seem to increase the need for tea and cake... especially when you have spent the morning stripping steel brackets from aluminium extrusion and the gloves are wet & cold.

Dave Tilbury