A Volunteer's Tale

This was my day out in Oswestry earlier in the Summer.

I arrived at almost bang on 9:30 am Sunday morning to be met by Kevin and in the finest tradition first job was put the kettle on and have a cup of tea.  So here was my first integration problem… I am not a tea or coffee drinker.  But apart from this abnormality I was greeted with enthusiasm.

Now the first thing I noticed was that everyone had fine waterproof clothing and I had my normal overalls, I panicked remembering that I was not in Italy and that a clear sky in Oswestry meant no more than it would not rain in the next twenty minutes.  So undaunted I resigned myself to the fact that if it rained I would get wet.  It’s been a long time since I did anything remotely physical for a full day   Mowing the grass, decorating and DIY hardly constitutes physical training for the joys of P. Way work.

First job of the day.  Kevin had a stack of sleepers that needed sorting and getting ready for use going towards Weston.

The first part consisted of playing inverse Jenga, that is you need to find the sleeper that will make the most ones roll off the pile.  These sleepers were a mixture, mostly usable but some only fit for firewood.  Most had through bolted chairs which needed freeing up and the rest were screwed, that is some were with screwed chairs, the rest were too far gone to use.

Once off the pile, these good sleepers needed rolling to a point on the stack where the Thursday gang or other willing recruits can turn them in to sleepers ready for the track gang. The first part of which was a liberal dose of oil ably supplied by Tony on the magic brush.

As with any job the key is knowing the tricks to make things smoother.  Getting a sleeper with chairs on a roll takes a bit of getting used to but eventually I managed to keep up and not slow the crew of Alan and Kevin down too much.  Of course a couple of brew breaks were slipped in which allowed me to recover slightly.

After a couple of hours and a flattened sleeper pile we had 111 sleepers ready to be worked on, not all the results of our morning’s efforts but put together a nice total to take the track laying gang onwards to Weston.

Next job was a stroll down to meet my next two companions, the Iron Men, but first a brew break and more chat.   On to the Iron Men, these two A frames allow rail to be lifted and rolled along with ease.  Now that is fine but you need to get the lifting part above the rail to be moved.  As the rails were in the 6 foot this meant lifting first the iron men which with more hands is a lot less strain,  At first we found a couple of ‘willing helpers’ but after that it was between the three of us and I was definitely the weakest link.

The delights of rail turners and crowbars were relearned as two sixty foot rail lengths were moved across and positioned ready to load in to the waiting chairs.

Midway through this activity the lunch and brew call sounded again.  Whilst walking back to base, by a round about route we came across Chairman Rob working on a point lever which needed adjustment.  A quick 5 minute job was how it started out but turned in to a full afternoon.  This also required a bit of packing under the sleepers to get things to the right level. And so began my introduction to packing hammers…. My last attempt at packing was in 7 ¼” gauge and was relatively pain free.  The full sized equivalent requires strength, skill and precision, neither of which I posses to any degree.

I thumped the ballast, sleepers and rail but with very little precision and not much success, so I decided that was probably one job which would need more practice.  Old hands with two or three well aimed blows sorted out the problem much better than my forty whacks with a wet haddock.

Lunch over and with a new wind we set about the placing of the rails for the new P.Way siding and after some more lifting and crowbar work the final rail fell in to the chairs with a satisfying clang.  The fishplates and bolts were next and it was good to see and hear a petrol driven nut runner to make the job so much easier.  Next tool up was the key hammer, which is a smaller cousin to the packing hammer and this time seemed to be about my level of capability.  Of course there is a knack and also an  order to put keys in but after Kevin explained this it was not long before I could put in a key with just a couple of well aimed blows.  At that moment in time it felt like I could have set off for Weston and put in all the keys in an afternoon.  I was on cloud nine.

By about 5pm most of the work was done and the idea was to go and try to start the ballast screener that had recently arrived.  At this point with a minimum 4 hour drive ahead of me I elected to call it a day.

Just after 9pm I arrived back at my parents where after a shower and healthy meal I managed to have a quick snooze in the armchair.  At about 11 I called time and made the short trip upstairs to bed.  I usually lie back and think about the day that has been whilst waiting for sleep to slowly come, this time I just smiled and fell asleep instantly, exhausted but supremely happy at the thought of having made one small step on the long journey to rebuild our line. 

A sincere and heartfelt thanks from me to all involved in the project and for being so welcoming to a new (occasional) recruit.  To sum up in the words of such a great actor as Arnie… “I’ll be back….”

Next instalment on the Weston sleepers.