The Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway
THE PERMANENT WAY - No. 3
"Relaying Dolarddyn Curve, October - November 2001"
The time table for the years 2001 relay went as follows: by Sunday 28th October all the new sleepers and fitting had been laid in position on site and the last passenger train of the season returned to Llanfair at 18-05hrs in the pitch black as the clocks moved from BST to GMT and we "lost" an hours daylights in the evening.
On Monday 29th the works train departed Llanfair promptly at 9am and it's gang of merry souls (so many in fact that we had to have tea and lunch breaks in 2 shifts) moved to the site and removed spikes and rails, lifted sleepers onto wagons and stacked them at Tanllan yard ready for sale.
Tuesday 30th Started with sleeper lifting with the help of Rodney's JCB which then leveled the cleared track bed and included a bit of super elevation. We then unloading this last wagon at Tanllan of these former London Transport hard wood sleepers which are very heavy! Note the chamfered ends to fit in the tunnel "tube". We laid these in 1984 and the only problem has been the spikes pushing out on the curve leading to gauge widening and then the need to insert rail ties to help correct this, they are destined to continue their long life on another railway. You may see they are now so full of holes one wonders why they can still be so heavy.
By Wednesday 31st all the new Karri hardwood sleepers, from Western Australia, had been laid and the rails fixed and joined up with a new load of ballast spread ready for lifting and tamping. Right - shows the track jacked up to produce an even level with cant on this long curve ready for spot packing ready for the tamper.
Left -
After realigning the curve and changing one 30' rail which was too bent we ended
up with just under a 2 inch overlap of rails on both sides, this was better than
an under lap! Here we see John using our latest bit of kit, the rail cutter
making his efforts to contribute to the weekends Bonfire Night festivities with
his big sparkler. In the background the rail mounted generator waits to provide
power for the new electric magnetic drill which will make the new fish plate holes
to bolt up the final connection. Previous to this the two rails would have had
to be taken back to Llanfair for cutting and drilling, a great saving on time
and effort. In the distance the ballast train is fast catching up with the final
spikes being driven in by Tom and John on the right.
Thursday 1st November and "Terrance" the
Tamper makes a lightning appearance and tamps the whole section and then roars
back to Llanfair almost before we realized, perhaps he is afraid of the dark! In
this shot your can just see our "lesser spotted" tamper finishing the
last few lengths at the foot of Dolarddyn bank from the ballast train as we rapidly
trying to keep up with the topping of stone.
If you "Twitchers/Gricers" have not been quick enough to get a close look at
this rare beast out of it's "nest" then go to my "Terrance"
the tamper site and you will see this fine specimen in ex works condition
performing with all it's bit's working: See Terrance in action In
addition to attending to the track the W&L "splinter" group
attached the ever encroaching jungle which threatened to turn the curve here
into a 
green tunnel and the next shot shows some of their work. The vast amount
of (Hawthorn & Blackthorn) saplings, bushes and small tree's was immense,
considering we cleared this site last time we relayed, err... well I suppose it
was 17 years ago and all that rain does help! Friday 2nd November saw us
finishing topping the ballast off and Saturday 3rd saw us finish this job
with a reduced staff and on Sunday 4th we completed the check and guard
rails on the occupation crossing at the foot of Dolarddyn bank, cleared all the
old spikes and fittings ready for the Santa trains to run over the new track.
Job Done.
A FEW STATISTICS
We started the re-lay at mile post 5¼ and laid 277 new "Karri" hardwood sleepers which measure about 5'3" x 8½" x 4½", over 23 x 30 foot lengths of rail (although some inside were shorter) of which one needed changing from the spares at Tanllan. The gradient at this point is about 1:51. The curve is about 10.8 chains extending over 45 degrees. We used about 1600 new spikes and reused, from on this site and from the Golfa, about 550 x 4 hole base plates. We also recovered 7 x 45lb concrete sleepers for re-used at 4 mile Oak. All in all a most successful track week, many thanks to John M. for his excellent planning and all those too numerous to mention, who turned out to make it happen and last and by no means least to Brian K. for his excellent stew hot tea and words of "encouragement"!.
Go to Previous Track week pages
Launched 7th November 2001
updated 29th April 2003 © Brian Tucker 2003