2016 October - Long Weekend Outdoor Working Party Report

Working Party season begins! The Outdoor Gang report.



Friday 7th October

7 gang members available – weather a little overcast a times but otherwise it was warm and sunny.

Most of the gang after a shunt at Wharf travelled up the valley behind loco No 11 to Quarry Siding dropping 3 gang members off en route in Dolgoch Woods. The gang in the woods spent the rest of the day undoing and greasing the bolts on the six hole fishplates, a steady task but one that reap dividends next year. It is planned to fishplate oil the section between the up whistle board for Dolgoch and the Station at some stage during 2017.

The rest of the gang on arrival at Quarry Siding shunted wagons and coaches to free off the north road in the shed for sleeper drilling. Next approximately 65 sleepers were loaded from the stacks east of the underbridge onto flat wagons and they then spent the rest of the day drilling them ready for the winter work programme. They had to break off at one point to clear the loop for a crossing.

The train returned the gang to Pendre at the end of the day.

Saturday 8th October

8 gang members available – weather warm and sunny again.

The fishplate bolt greasing gang continued their excellent work west of Dolgoch for the day. The sleeper drilling gang loaded the remaining stock of undrilled sleepers and continued with drilling till early afternoon when the job was completed. They then turned their hands to tidying the sleepers stacks east of the underbridge and loading a lot of scrap material from the shed into the Ford Transit tipper. The drains in the Dolgoch area also received their first clearance of the winter season.

Sunday 9th October

7 gang members available - The weather was still warm and sunny.

Sunday saw another train with the crane boflat heading up the valley to the Guest House. The south road was then cleared so we could load more scrap and items for disposal onto the boflat. We all then returned to Wharf crossing the morning train at Brynglas. Another small gang rode up the line to Abergynolwyn to clear the drains on the extension and west of the station. The underbridge just east of the public road crossing was measured up for replacement bridge beams. A tidy up of the Wharf south side was undertaken during the afternoon. The tidy up not only improved the outlook but identified more scrap metal and firewood. Before we called it a day we sorted the large stack of fishplates and scrapped a number of them along with some bolts. We also collected together the metric fishplate bolts that we will required for the re-sleepering task in November at the top of Brynglas Bank.

Monday 10th October

8 gang members available – The weather was still very warm and sunny.

The first task was to unload the newly drilled sleepers at two sites. The timbers drilled for BS60R rail were laid out at 4 ½ milepost and BS50 ones at the top of Brynglas Bank. We again crossed the 1st train at Brynglas before we continued west to unload the firewood we identified on Sunday at Tynllwyn for the Fireworks bonfire. The items for disposal from the Guest House we unloaded at Pendre.

Thanks

Very many thanks to all, an excellent weekend with a long list of achievements, some I am sure I have not noted above. It was very pleasing to welcome 3 new pairs of willing hands (Jaap, Frits and Matthew), along the regulars. The weather was just what the doctored and no doubt aided progress on all fronts.

Report and photos by Keith Theobald