2014 March - Long Outdoor Working Weekend

Progress over the weekend


Friday 21 March (11 people available for work)

A very successful day in spite of a few technical issues we had to defeat on each of the work sites. A gang of 3 worked with a train collecting up and then centralising logs from wind damaged tree between Dolgoch and Quarry Siding, they had problems with the hydraulic crane. The rest of the gang worked on tamping with the Matisa the re-sleepered section just east of milepost 4 ½. A small splitter group when not required carried out gauge maintenance work a little further west. The impact wrench had a sulk and would not recoil the starter cord and the Matisa failed within minutes of starting due to a slack drive belt. Many thanks to Mike Lotarew for bringing up to site the necessary tools to fix the various problems.

The weather was showery with very prolonged sunny intervals. By the end of the day the tamping work had made good progress, the gauge maintenance work was complete and lots of logs had been rounded up. We also found time to have a bonfire and build another one.

Saturday 22 March (11 people available for work)

The day turnout to be a little colder and a lot more showery than yesterday, however the gang are made of sterner stuff so we enjoyed another very successful day.

The main gang continued to work on tamping the re-sleepered section just east of milepost 4 ½ with the Matisa. A smaller group worked at Wharf loading the ballast train before heading up the line to drop further ballast as required following the section's first run through with tamper. Once the dropped stone was spread we declared it lunch. After lunch we collected up all the tools and equipment and moved operations to each side of the up whistle board for Dolgoch. While the tamping crew were setting up the rest carried out gauge maintenance on ten sleepers a little further west.

By the end of the day all the tamping work and the gauge maintenance work west of the viaduct was complete and all the equipment had been moved to Quarry Siding. Earlier in the day volunteers had carried out some levelling in the Cynfal area. During the afternoon some saplings that were interfering with the viaduct were also removed.

Sunday 23 March (12 people available for work)

The weather returned to normal and most the day was very sunny if a little cold first thing, plenty of snow was visible on the mountain further up the valley.

The gang returned to Quarry Siding by road, the tamping gear and the Matisa were positioned west of Quarry Siding. Yesterday’s boscage was also offloaded onto the bonfire site in the same move. While the tamping gang set to, loco No 8 and the flat wagons headed off in the direction of Ty Dŵr. On route we loaded a quantity of re-useable fencing slate for the Tracksiders. The slate was unloaded on arrival, the train then returned to Abergynolwyn where we removed saplings growing from the retaining wall east of the village water supply tank and loaded some logs. We also took the opportunity to remove a large quantity of wet leaves from the formation east of the siding buffer stops. On return to Quarry Siding we joined the others for lunch in the Guest House.

After lunch the tamping gang continued with their excellent work while a smaller gang returned to the viaduct to remove the last two saplings. Once cut the arisings were hauled up onto the viaduct and then stacked on the platform. We arrived back at Quarry Siding to find they had finished the tamping and had dropped the remaining ballast. More stone was needed so the ballast train was despatched to Wharf for refilling. The gang complete with the other train then collected the arisings from Dolgoch platform and in turn off loaded them onto the burn site before all the tools were removed from the tamping work site.

Finally we sorted through some of the displaced Jarrah sleepers and found sufficient good ones to re-sleeper the siding at Brynglas, a Tracksider task for 2015. The second engineering train then followed the Sunday train back to Tywyn with some of the gang while the rest returned by road.

Monday 24 March (12 people available for work)

Apart from one brief shower mid afternoon the day up to that point was gloriously sunny.

The ballast train departed with half of the gang for Quarry Siding. On arrival they completed the final boxing up of the previous days tamping. The rest of the gang went to Ty Mawr to sort some rails for a future task and cut twenty two 1 metre stakes for a rail retaining wall. After an early lunch the rail cutting gang continued with task while the rest took the Matisa to Ty Mawr and tamped a short section where the north side rail had settled a little. By 15:30 with both tasks completed and the ballast wagons returned to Wharf we called it a day.

Very many thanks to all the gang for all their time and hard work over the last four days. Together we achieved a great deal and progressed or completed a number of important key tasks and a myriad of smaller but no less important tasks.

TR Stone Blower Appeal

The Network Rail stone blower was also in action on the main line. We'd really like to have one as well - a smaller version! It would make life much easier for our Matisa Tamper. We're currently asking for donations to buy one - if you'd like to help or want further information please visit our fundrasing page - http://www.talyllyn.co.uk/stoneblower. Thank you!

Report and photos thanks to Keith Theobald.













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