OK ed I`ll teach you everything you need to know about bert weedons style, that should take me about 2 minutes
I bid on 10 lessons -- so,
Due to the distance I'll have to travel --and bearing in mind it will take a day for my brain to digest what you will teach me each lesson I think I should come and stay for the 10 days the lessons will take ......
Do you also have a bed for Bess my dog because I won't be able to leave her on her own
I don't always have a FULL english breakfast each morning and I only drink coffee -no tea and I have my coffee black
oi I`ll have you kinow I worked with the Perminent Way gang on the East Lancashire railway last saturday changing sleepers
here my account for the magazine
Confessions of a volunteer, part 1, My First day out with the PW Gang
The Monk
My time as a volunteer started around 4 years ago as a steward on the Santa Specials, due to work commitments, my time is, like many limited, I have to balance my hobby, work life and family commitments into a busy lifestyle. I have however been feeling guilty for some time about being out enjoying myself taking photographs of the railway while everyone else is working very hard to provide that pleasure for me, so I thought Its about time I became a little more involved.
I’m now writing this from ward 7 at Oldham Hospital, recovering from exhaustion, after a day out with the PW gang at Heywood yesterday.
Like probably many people who travel by rail, I had absolutely no idea what PW gang members actually did, my presumed knowledge told me that they sat at the side of the tracks dressed in pretty orange uniforms drinking tea and waving at every train that goes by, armed with this knowledge I knew right away this was a job I could get involved with and indeed the job for me. Just how wrong can you be?
Saturday had been a busy morning for me, I was down at the sheds early to photograph the S160 coming off shed and what a beast that is. I return to meet up with the Gang at Heywood and arrived just after 9.00am. On arrival I met the first member of the team, Alt who was already looking very industrious down on the tracks, I introduced myself and received a warm welcome with information on what we were to do for the day, which was to change 6 sleepers. How hard could that be I said to myself, I’ve changed literally thousands in my time, some times as many as 100 in an evening, its just a matter of pulling out the track pin and snipping off the sleeper with a pair of pliers, why I’ve changed N gauge, TT and even 00 sleepers, the ELR sleepers are only a few gauges bigger so it shouldn’t be that difficult and besides hadn’t I watch how they did it in Australia when they relayed the line to Alice Springs, its all done by those huge long yellow machines these days with all the PW gang sat in the back drinking tea.
Shortly afterwards the rest of the gang turned up, and what a lovely complement of people they are, its funny how when you meet some people you take to them right away, I felt this with all the gang members, all of whom made me feel very welcomed, all had an excellent sense of humour but each was highly knowledgeable and professional in there approach, to what is one of the most important jobs on the railway. What a privilege and pleasure to be allowed to work along side such a nice bunch of chaps. People who travel by rail have absolutely no idea about the amount of work that goes into giving them a smooth ride and I believe everyone working on the railways should have at least an appreciation of what goes into track laying and maintenance, especially those chaps who drive whacking great 9F up and down the line doing wheelie’s. It really is professionalism in its own right.
But to return the story, we were all waiting at the crossing gate at Heywood for Phil to arrive, I presumed Phil would be driving the large yellow track maintenance machine thingie up from Castleton and I eagerly awaited for the crossing gates to swing open so that we could all jump in the back, drink tea, tell jokes and watch this giant machine replace the sleepers at record braking speed.
While I was waiting for the crossing gates to swing open, a guy appeared in a land rover with a yellow trailer attached full of antique tools, what a good idea I thought, the ELR have additionally organised a car boot sale to supplement the War weekend?
I soon however took a reality check when I realised the land rover driver was none other that Phil himself and the antiquities where the tools we was actually going to be using to change the sleepers. The time for drinking tea was over, oh dear.
Stay tuned for the next thrilling instalment, to be continued!!Confessions of a PW student, Part 2, (continued), the Plot Thickens.
The first job on the agenda was to unload the trailer, the first thing I learned was that everything you use for changing sleepers and maintaining the PW is extremely heavy, very heavy, even the shovels. Fortunately we had this truck like thing with two wheels on, which could be lifted on to the track the pushed along, thus carrying sleepers and stuff, to the desired work location, and my first job was to drive it. I must admit only on a few occasions have I actually driven anything on 12inch to the foot gauge rails and this little truck did prove to be a bit harsh on the old triceps, but I managed and we dropped the sleepers off at the desired locality. The next job was to dig all the ballast away from the old sleepers, now this was the hard part and the last time I’d used a shovel, well spade really, was on the sands at Blackpool in around 1956 whilst on holiday with my mum and dad (I knew this experience would come in handy one day). I think I managed about 4 shovels full between heart attacks, but eventually the old sleepers were ready for removal, fortunately, very fortunately, we didn’t have the problems Phil had, unfortunately some sleepers just don’t want to cooperate, fortunately ours did.
The next job was to collect the rail jack, now these things are really heavy, nothing like the jack in my car boot. I collected the jack from further down the line and carried it, with my head going purple and pulsating veins beginning to stand out on my neck, and deposited it in our work area, (who was it who said hard work never did anyone any harm? probably some bourgeoisie exploiter of the great unwashed classes no doubt).
At this stage I wandered around the track to have a look see what everyone else was doing, a couple of the lads were levelling the track, this was quite interesting, the track was jacked up and aligned and then smaller gravel chippings were blown underneath the rails proper to help fill the voids which the larger gravel would be unable to fill. Sleepers were removed by a large pair calliper type thingies, which made the job a lot easier and the new sleepers were slide into position, and bolted back into place (yeah OK its not as easy as that). The tools for fitting and removing the rail bolts were nothing like my Black and Decker at home, nor was the drill for drilling through the sleepers, these things were big, heavy and really nasty looking things, not for the faint hearted.
Lunchtime was much welcomed and I learned here that sitting down can be a bit tricky after digging out rails, but getting up again was definitely an art form and required the use of all four limbs (with great care). Like all good things though, the day eventually came to an end (phew!), we collected all the tools, said our goodbyes, lots of tears etc, and I crawled across the car park and back into the car. So final conclusions, it was a lovely warm day on the negative side my new boots was killing me, I’d overdone it with the sun and I have now have muscles aching were I didn’t even realise I had muscles. On the plus side, it was a lovely warm sunny day again, funny how these things stick in your mind, I’d had the privilege of working with some lovely people who treated me as an equal, I learned a lot, like N gauge sleepers are much easier to change than 12 inch to the foot gauge sleepers, I learned how to hold a shovel correctly along with a bit of guidance on how to use it, and I also learned what PW gangs do after the trains goes by. So until next time guys and many thanks again.
