Latest news from the Waverley Route Heritage Association

TRACK WEEKEND - 28/29 JUNE 2008

While the estimated cost of the Edinburgh to Tweedbank reinstatement spirals ever upwards, our intrepid volunteer band continues to work miracles on a microscopic budget, using only the most basic of tools and second- hand materials. Perhaps the Scottish Parliament would like to invite WRHA to submit a tender in due course……

Saturday saw us complete the fixing down of all the sleepers through the platform site, the last of the 176 we’ve laid since February. This work has also used up some 240 PAN11 baseplates, 480 “Pandrol” clips and 720 chair screws, all sourced from our suppliers down south and transported to site by our volunteers. Next time you pass a car on the M6 dragging its tail- end along the tarmac, you know where it’s headed.
 
Thanks are extended to member and good friend Jan Littwin up in Fife for lending us a very professional looking platform gauge. In best nursery school “how does this work then?” fashion, the assembled throng eventually assembled the beast correctly and used it to calculate how far the track will need lifting through the platform. It must be said that the mental arithmetic employed by certain individuals was also of nursery school standard!

As a special treat for having finished their proper “track” work on Saturday, Alastair kindly let the gang build their first ever drainage catch-pit on Sunday. After hand- digging a very deep hole through broken rock, we sunk a glass reinforced  plastic sump topped with four concrete ring units at the uphill end of the new “six foot drain”. We also laid and buried a section of pipe to form a cross- drain from the existing cess drainage system. Strong rumours are already circulating that our Chairman, Iain MacIntosh, has adopted the catch- pit as his new bath at Signalbox Cottage…..

Work planned for July/ August includes ballasting, lifting and kango- packing the track through the platform, followed by moving the coaches into “Whitrope Siding Halt” itself.

Thanks again to all the volunteers who turned out. You know who you are.

MORE PHOTOS IN THE MEMBERS ONLY IMAGE GALLERY http://wrha.fotopic.net

TRACK WEEKEND - 24/25 MAY 2008

The weather, considering it was a bank holiday weekend, was dry but very windy; you could almost expect tumbleweed rolling by like in the old wild west!

Work started with fixing down the rails, utilising the usual pan11s, clips and AS screws, br mk1s and maintenance spikes onto the sleepers like we have done so many times over the last few months, we could almost do it blindfolded!

It also made a change that rotabroaching was carried out over the last two days, our track engineer/manager Alastair Connell undertook some training on the said machine beforehand.

Fishplates were removed at each rail joint which needed drilling prior to using this machine which drills holes into the flat bottom rail by using a guide that has two spaced slots on the top. This then clamps onto the rail end. After completion, the fishplates were rebolted onto the rail joints; a total of 27 holes were bored throughout the weekend which exceeded expectations.

At the crossing we removed a pair of rails on the up side of the run round loop along using man power/rail grabs and the dumper, driven deftly by Claude! Once removed the redundant baseplates and spikes were taken to the scrap pile and the crossing road surface reinstated. When the crossing order has been granted the rail will be put back this time using pan 11s bolted onto hardwood sleepers.

Forthcoming work includes resleepering the line where the platform contractors formed a crossing for old ballast to be dumped into the space between the platform walls, spiking the remaining sleepers up to the points, taking sleepers to the tunnel compound using the trolley and bringing back bricks to be stacked at the bay platform ready for laying.

Next track weekend (albeit a mini one) will be on June 6/7th where Joe Taylor will be leading proceedings so the more volunteers can turn up the better. Stout gloves and toe capped boots please.

Check rail drilled & bolted - Photo Alastair Connell

MARCH 2008 TRACK NEWS

Following on from our successful track weekend in early March, contractors have been on site splitting- down the remaining track panels recovered in 2003 from the Settle and Carlisle line. All the component materials have been sorted, with all the poorer quality sleepers as well as all the dreaded BR1 baseplates and spikes sold as scrap.

The good news is that we have generated, in a fraction of the time it would have taken with our own volunteers, enough serviceable timber sleepers to complete our first phase of tracklaying ie. the Golden Bridge to just short of the tunnel.

All future tracklaying southwards towards Riccarton will utilise serviceable concrete sleepers and loose sixty foot flat bottom rails, all site- assembled into panels in their final position. The use of concrete sleepers on a heritage railway avoids future maintenance liability: basically they should last forever! Our first batch of concretes should be on site in the next few days.

Only a twenty foot long closure panel is needed to complete the basic track installation in the platform area and this should be in place by the end of the April track weekend. Work will then turn to completing the points, the drainage installation and getting ready for ballasting.

Our thanks must go to all the staff from K &J Bownes of Worksop who have been working on site through some fairly foul weather.

TRACK WEEKEND - 16/17 MARCH 2008

We continue to make steady tracklaying progress towards the track to the north of the progressing platform with dismantled track panels from Ninestanerig cutting,using our trustworthy tractor panels were dragged off onto the ground where they were pulled apart using bars, a sledgehammer and a spike puller to release the rails from the BR MK1 baseplates.

The rails in turn were dragged up to the worksite using a D-link coupler,chain and youve guessed it our Knock-Kneed, knackered old tractor.

At the work site the rails were dragged into position ready to be rolled with the rail turning bar or by using bars and rail grabs to put onto sleepers and their corresponding PAN 11baseplates with pads.The rails were clipped on the baseplates using pandrol clips then the plates were bolted down in position using the AS screws after holes were drilled into the sleepers with the trusty old Bance; the track being set using the rail gauge at 1435mm. A minimum of 8 sleepers were used per track panel to be increased to 28 later on when time allows.

Over the entire weekend around 3 whole panels were assembled leaving about 20ft still to go before joining both south and north track together. Future work includes cut and shutting the track to make the track ends parallel on both south and north ends, cutting 2x20ft lengths of rail, sleepering and baseplating/clipping up and bolting down of in between both set of rails.

If anyone could sponsor a track panel to contribute towards the purchase of new sleepers please contact the WRHA by emailing or writing at the usual address.

FEBRUARY 2008 TRACK WEEKEND

As with 2007, we kicked- off our 2008 track- laying season on a weekend blessed with beautiful clear weather (will this mean June will be a washout again?). In contrast with the “Solway side”, the “Tweed side” of the watershed just to our north saw impenetrable freezing fog all day, so for once the weather was well and truly on our side!

Joe Taylor led proceedings on Saturday, moving the privately owned static caravan off the old Down line formation, splitting- down panels and dragging rails up from the depths of the cutting using our faithful tractor.

On Sunday, we started laying track north from the isolated section on which the coaches are currently stood, re- crossing bridge 199 in the process. In all, three sixty foot lengths were laid, albeit with only every third sleeper installed to begin with. We had hoped to lay concrete sleepers on this section, but the planned source is not yet “on stream”. Another three and a bit track lengths will see us through the new platform and temporarily connected up to the track coming south from the summit. This will allow the brakevan to be dragged north towards the summit, clearing the way for the coaches to be moved into the platform.

Work on the platform walls continues, albeit slowly through the winter months, with the concrete strip foundations and two courses of blockwork built to date.

A meeting took place on site with Scottish Borders Council and the Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR) in early December to discuss our application for a level crossing order. No significant issues came up and, after copious paperwork production over the festive season, our “Preliminary Draft Order” went out to consultation. The next, substantially bigger task is to prepare our application for a Light Railway Order, which we must have before we can run any trains on our new line.

As you can see, progress continues at a satisfying pace, but things can always be speeded- up with more volunteer support on our track weekends. Please, please come along and help out: we guarantee copious fresh air, good company and personal satisfaction in having helped re- build this much missed railway.

Alternatively, we desperately need to buy new softwood sleepers to replace the many rotten ones from the track panels we acquired in 2003. £20 buys and transports a new sleeper to Whitrope: anyone fancy “sponsoring a sleeper”?

A members-only image gallery has been set up - any member requiring access please send an email to info@wrha.org.uk quoting your current membership number. A small selection of images will still continue to be put on this site but WRHA members will have complete access to all the photographs - what better excuse to join WRHA today!

UPDATED 28nd May 2008