Army_Air_Force

After 7pm, it was still 22 degrees, but I went back outside to start spreading gravel. The gravel was quite dusty, with a fine silt all over. I didn't want this washing onto the the weed membrane, as it was just going to provide somewhere for weeds to grow. So all the gravel was washed as I scooped it out of the bags, to get the worst of the silt off before spreading it around. I balanced the wheelbarrow on the sleeper wall and loaded it up with washed gravel. This could then be wheeled along the top of the wall and onto the track bed.

It was hot work, but eventually I got the six bags driven across the lawn and dumped on the new lawn, ready to start spreading. This was as close as I could get them. By this time I was melting in the heat, so packed up the Dodge and came indoors to cool off.

June 21st Around noon, a big delivery truck turned up and dropped off five 850Kg bags of river gravel. The one day I wanted overcast and cool, it was at least 24 degrees. I started decanting gravel from the large 850Kg bag, into smaller half ton bags, to split the load into three. Two large bags were split giving me six loads to move. The Dodge was brought out of the garage again and the crane mounted. I then drove to the front of the house and hooked up the first bag.

Nothing, just a view of the wild flower, mini embankment beyond the track.

There's no engine!

The top and bottom rails were fitted first. The bottom rail was mounted quite high, to allow for ballast height below it. The last two pictures of the day with all three planks attached. They looked a bit fresh, so planned to do some weathering and dry brushing on the planks and posts. I may yet add some short diagonal braces at the bottom of the left fence post to give it a little more support.

The second fence post was screwed directly to the gatepost. The tops of both fence posts were trimmed at a slight angle to encourage water to drain off the top. There was evidence of rot, splitting and woodworm in the planks, so there was some gluing and clamping first to fix the splits. To harden up the rot, I mixed a batch of waterproof PVA glue, water and shed paint and painted several coats onto the planks, allowing the mix so soak in. The two darker planks have their shed paint coats applied. The lighter one has the PVA mix and still needed further coats.

June 13th Before the ballast can be laid, I needed to get the fence made to the left of the gate. The posts I got from my neighbour were slightly over long so they were trimmed down this morning. The first post was screwed to the hawthorn sleepers and the height was then projected across to the gatepost so the height of that could be cut. All the fence parts were painted in Dark Oak shed paint, however, the rungs of the fence all needed cutting to length and a matching width out of the varied scrap pieces from my neighbour.

Yes, the wifey approved.

I had around a quarter of a bag of river gravel, left over from the soakaway behind the sleeper wall. I decided to spread this out and get a feel for how far and how deep it would cover. This suggested the six bulk bag estimate was probably pretty close. It is quite dusty and yellow in this shot, but washed, it is a mix of blue/grey, light grey and light brown. So around lunch time, I went to the supplier and ordered five bulk bags of the river gravel. That won't be delivered until next Wednesday. It will be another job for the Dodge to bring that around to the back garden! Once the five bags have been spread out over the track bed, I can decide whether one decorative bulk bag is enough, or whether to add one more river gravel layer before the decorative stone. If I've bought too much already, the excess can go on the driveway to patch up some thin areas. Along with the second order, I'll probably add two bulk bags of top soil for the new lawn. June 12th - Additional I took another photo of the gate, at a similar angle to a picture of one of the locos from Tanfield Railway. The two pictures have been merged to create a ghost loco crossing my track.

June 12th On the 12th, I got the weed membrane glued and stapled to the front sleeper wall and wrapped over the edge strip that I fitted the day before. There was also an additional patch of weed membrane to glue down at the back, where the original 5mtr square sheet wasn't long enough. Then came the question of ballast. After taking some measurements, I sat down with an online gravel calculator. Even allowing for the space taken by the sleepers, it suggested six 850Kg bulk bags to fill the area. Decorative gravel starts at £100 per bulk bag, so spending £600 on rock was more than I was prepared to spend. I then contemplated filling most of the area with river gravel, then just adding a final layer of decorative gravel on top. The river gravel was only £50 per pulk bag and much more affordable.

June 11th On the morning of the 11th, I had a trip out to B&Q for some timber. I wanted to form an edge to the trackbed to contain the ballast and keep the soil embankment in place. The easiest way seemed to be a 4 inch tall timber wall, with stakes to hold it in place. The wall is made from three strips and the centre one needed cutting to length. All three strips were painted along the bottom edges in bitumen and left to dry for a short time. Once dry enough to handle, I started fixing them in place. At the hedge end, the timber was attached to the sleeper wall next to the future hedge-side path. At the front, the timber was screwed to the timber wall. Along the length, I hammered in several stakes and the timbers were screwed to these stakes. After that, the rest of the timber was painted in bitumen. Once dry, the weed membrane will be wrapped over the top of the timber edge and will probably be stapled to the wood, each side. The ballast can then be filled up to the timber on the track side and the earth bank can be back filled to the other side.

As the day drew to a close, I was indoors, but noticed the sunset colours on the wall inside the lounge. I grabbed my phone and went out to see what I could capture. There is of course, still a lot of clutter around the site. The tree trunks are just holding down the weed membrane covering the new lawn area until I start work on that and there's no ballast down yet, but after taking these sunset pictures, I thought the area would be great for some widefield star shots or star trail photos too.

The mount bolts and post screws were then painted over in black Hammerite. I finished the work with an arty photo, between two bushes. I can see this location featuring quite a bit in my future astronomy photos.

June 10th With the paint on the gate mount fully dry, it was time to get it fitted. The concrete footing was drilled and four rawle bolts hold the mount down. Since the post was quite a tight fit, I covered the bottom of the post and inside the mount with Vaseline, so it would slide in without damaging the paint on either. The post was then held into the mount with twelve large screws. Once that was fixed in place, the gate was lifted to its correct position and the bolt hole drilled and painted. It was left to dry a while before the gate was closed and the bolt slotted into the hole.

The whole area will look much better once ballasted and the new lawn flattened out and seeded. It was a good job I was working quickly, as at 14:55 hours, I saw and photographed the first train; albeit, it was N scale!!! This could well be the first train in the village since Dr Beeching's axe fell on the British railways.

I seemed to spent a lot of the day, walking up and down the garden for stuff! The jack allowed me to lift the rail and sleeper and try the packer in place. A couple of sleepers needed some packers and they all needed a little trimming to fit. With the rails all sitting flush, I stopped to clear up the tools and take some pictures.

By twenty past one in the afternoon, all four rails were fitted and I was starting to hammer in the chair keys. This didn't take too long, but once all the rails were secure, the short rail nearest the crossing gate, was sitting a bit low. Off to the workshop again, to cut some wooden packers to go under the sleepers. I levelled the ground as best as I could, but there were still some undulations. The sleepers and now with rail too, were very heavy, so to lift them to get the packers under the sleeper, I made another trip up the garden for my trolley jack.

After another long walk up the garden, I came back with a bucket of chair keys. These keys are hammered into the gap between the chair and rail. This is quite an old method of rail fixing. In the video below, you can see me hammering a key in. As the chair keys were already used, most didn't require too much force to hammer in. Only one was really tight and needed a little trimming off to fit. Here's a short video of transporting the last rail, hammering in a chair key and a little fun afterwards!

The last rail was brought down just before lunch, but left on the sleeper wall until I'd refuelled. It was rolled into place along side the rail chairs and then each end lifted in turn to drop it into the chairs.

The longer rails were a bit harder to handle, heavier to lift by hand for moving the rollers etc. I used a 2 inch wide nylon strap from an old snapped ratchet strap for the lifting. A loop was tied in each end and they were looped around a one foot length of broom handle. The strap was passed under the rail and the length was just right so I didn't have to bend. The most I needed to lift them was about six inches into the rail chairs. I got three rails fitted and then stopped for lunch.

The long view down the garden shows four of my hobbies/interests in one shot. On the left, between the shed and garage, is the trailer that I carried my R/C aircraft in. The light green building is my observatory for astronomy. The railway is next and finally the Dodge for my military vehicle interest. It also shows the long trip down the garden - the reason I used the Dodge in the first place. My wife thought I was going to have to find some strong friends! The whole process repeated - lift, drive, drop, roll and lift into place. At this point, the rails were just being dropped into the chairs, not properly fitted at this time. The longer rails took a little longer to rig for lifting, as only one end of those rails had a hole through.

Once aligned between the sleepers, one end was lifted by hand and turned 90 degrees. Another plank running up the railway sleepers, allowed me to then roll the rail towards the hedge. I was fitting the shorter sections of rail at the hedge end and the longer pieces at the playhouse end. It took thirty six minutes from hooking up the first piece of rail to the crane, to having it sitting in the rail chairs.

The playhouse limited how close I could get, so once there, the rail was raised with the chain hoist, then the jib was lowered, swinging the rail further back from the Dodge. It was then lowered onto the sleeper wall, next to the railway. Once sitting on the sleeper wall, I lifted each end by hand, and placed a two inch diameter roller under the rail. The rollers were made from two offcuts of wooden tent poles. This allowed me to roll the rail along the wall to where the trackbed was.

June 9th The 9th was the big day! I wanted the rails fitted. The first stage was to get my Dodge Weapons Carrier out of the garage and assemble the crane on the back. There was no way I was going to be able to carry the rails down the garden, but the Dodge would manage to get them almost all of the way with very little effort. Nylon ropes attached through bolt holes in the rail and connected the rail to the chain hoist on the Dodge crane. Another rope was tied to each end of the rail and was fastened to part of the crane frame inside the Dodge. This triangulated the rail to stop it from swinging around while I was driving. The rail was picked up from the driveway, near the garage, reversed through a gap in the hedge onto the lawn, then I swung around, heading backwards towards the play house and level crossing gate.