Better Packing

Prior to the 08 Open Day Ieuan one of the railway's owners spent days clearing back vegetation along the whole railway, this meant that with a little feteling the full length of the railway could be used. While majority of the Moles Hill - Highfield section ran remarkably well for a railway that hadn't seen intense service for 7-8 years there were a couple locations which some stock disagreed with, the decision was therefore taken to re-ballast the section of the furthest section of the balloon loop where some rail joints were nearing on an inch between the rails. Luckily on this section the track panels were removable so we were able to lift them and dig out the ballast, pegs had been fitted when the railway was built to keep the track alignment true, but in order to realign the panels and thus removing the rail joint gaps the pegs were taken out, should the track not keep its alignment it is likely we will reinstate them.

The geotextile needs trimming back

We have been having problems with the ridgety of the track panels and as the sleepers are not very deep a twist in the panels has become apparent, my idea (seriously mine!!) to solve this was to screw batons of 2x1 wood to the underside of a few of the sleepers in order to give more of an area to pack. We have trialled this on the balloon loop and it looks as though it will work, when the new ballast was first put in there was a obvious reverse cant which was almost impossible to pack out, however now with the batons in place it appears the packing will now hold. It is proposed that we shall now work on using this system in the Bangor Road LC - Moles Hill cutting as the twist is very evident there.

During a break from all of this the opportunity was taken to beat back some of the brambles on the outside of the loop so access could be gained to some new photographic vantage points. Such as these:

I feel it'd be nice to strip back some of the moss as the walling is rather beautiful

Thanks go to Ellis Morey for these photos