Sleep(er)ing All Week

Most of the work on Tuesday and Thursday was concentrated on spot replacement of sleepers on the line north of Weston station. This will be an ongoing job for a while as there is around half a mile to work on. Andy G took the following pictures as work progressed.

On Tuesday work started on the first panel, the rails were manually levered out of the chairs. Here we are looking back to Weston with one rail out and the keys about to be taken out of the second one. Then with crowbars the rail is levered out and placed to the side.

Once the rails are out the selected sleepers are removed and placed to the side for collection be the works train. In this view you can see the stacks of good sleepers ready to see further use as part of the mainline. Once the sleepers have been replaced the rails are put back and the fishplates installed.

By Thursday, and due to the numbers involved, the ironmen had been brought into service  to help with movement of the rails. Once in place the ironmen make short work of lifting and shifting the rails.

With the rails to the side the life expired sleepers can be replaced,  the one in the foreground of this picture has been done. Plenty more to be replaced and the work will continue for a while.

The work around the Weston site carries on. One of the signal posts was moved onto a pair of trestles to allow restoration to commence. The skip was filled with scrap and the funds raised will be added to the station fund. Here the skip is about half full and by the end of the day was pretty full.

Next week will be a working week with a concentrated effort to push on with the works to make the pointwork operational from the groundframes and to upgrade more of the track towards Oswestry.

Back at Oswestry work continues in the workshop with running repairs to essential equipment and restoration. Thanks to CHR Facebook here is a picture of the latest work on the new front tubeplate for Oliver, further holes have been drilled. Cosmetic work on Adam continued with the reversing lever receiving attention.

Thank you to the volunteers who turn up in all weather conditions to take the project forward and to the photographers who help to document progress.

Until next time.