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| During the last few months the day to day work of track maintenance has continued. In the summer the Northampton loop is used for West Coast diversions at weekends allowing work to be done on the old line ( local terminology for the fast lines from Hanslope to Rugby).
This is a sleeper slide I was doing in Roade cutting on the Down Fast line. It is a means of digging of dirty ballast without having to remove the rails or sleepers. In this case 45 beds were dug and the line given back on a 50m.p.h. speed restriction, which was removed the following weekend. The termination board can be seen in the background.
Whilst doing this work we also changed 4 broken concrete sleepers. Sleeper slides are one of the methods we can use to eradicate the problem of slurry spots occuring when planned reballasting is not due for some time. Behind the men are the girders holding the overhead wires of the Northampton lines which come up to run alongside the main line at this point. |
| To eliminate joints in the track which allowed the rails to expand and contract with the effect of heat and cold, it is necessary to put continuous welded rail under tension. This is done with hydraulic rams which hold the rail whilst it is being welded. In this particular area several defective rails had been removed and it was calculated that the rails needed to be re-stressed. The amount of stress put into the rail is dependant upon the temperature at the time and is calculated such that the rail will become stress free when the temperature is 27 degrees C. These rams can work at over 5,000p.s.i. and gaps in the rail of over 12 inches (300mm.) can be closed in certain circumstances. |
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Insulated joints are essential to break up the electrical sections of track circuits in the rails. Track circuits indicate the presence of trains on a section of track and are a major part of the signalling system. The rails are isolated from each other by a piece of insulated material shaped like a section of rail. The fishplates are insulated from the bolts and rails by a hard plastic. In the case of old style joints , these insulations can be renewed on the old fishplate whenever they become worn.
Here Ron, Charlie & Steve have just renewed the insulations on a joint in the emergency crossover at Althorp Ground Frame on the Northampton lines. Failure of these joints causes signals to stay at red and points to be locked in one position so they really can create considerable delays. Modern joints require either complete relacement of the fishplates or are made up in a factory onto pieces of new rail which have to be welded into the track. The hammering of the train wheels over these joints mean that maintenance of them is a continuous process. Future developements in track circuits will hopefully lead to the abolision of most insulated joints with a consequent lowering of track maintenance costs. |
British Rail spent the absolute minimum on sidings maintenance particularly those used for internal engineering traffic. When EWS took over the lease of many of these they had to spend some money to avoid the derailments that were very common. We managed to get the work in Northampton and have been re-timbering and replacing many of the worst bits.
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Because of the royal train running to Long Buckby on the sad occasion of Diana, Princess of Wales' funeral, and me being the "on-call" P. Way supervisor, I had the Road-Rail Land Rover as my standby vehicle. Fortunately its use was not required but it is proving to be a very useful vehicle. |
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