Weeding the Way to Weston

One of the other jobs tackled over the last working weekend was the weeding of the ballast piles on the way from the railhead to the cattle creep.  Using some of our wonderful machines, and those of a contractor brought in to help, the old ballast had been scraped off and placed to one side, ready for screening.  Since then Mother Nature has been trying to hide these ballast piles by the use of fast spreading weeds.  Before this material is screened a good weeding session was required, feeding the weeds into the screener would only dissipate more the roots and lead to longer term problems.

Here you can see what we started with and how quickly the weeds establish themselves in the ballast soil mix.

Gradually the team worked their way along the piles under the sunny weather, making essential stops to visit Laura who helped in providing the supply of liquid refreshments!

Here you can see in the distance the screener and the limit of the earthworks for Gasworks Bridge, with the weeded piles on the right and the rails on the left.  Can you see what we are missing for track laying?  The sleepers that we can reuse are stacked and waiting, we also have the reclaimed sleepers ready to be placed.  We are almost ready to re-start tracklaying!

Here is a mid session shot with the weeding by hand taking place.  It's strange that when you get home there does not seem to be quite so much enthusiasm for weeding the garden!

On the other side away from the ballast piles more mechanised means were used.  First the rails were moved out of the way using the excavator in another of it's roles. 

Once the rails were out of the way 'mechanised weeding' could begin.

Those poor little weeds stood no chance.  The skilful use of the bucket took off the growth and placed it neatly for removal.

We can now see once more the trackbed and where future energies will be directed on the push to Weston.

Thanks again to Guy N for providing the pictures.

Until next time