SillyBilly
|
Re-Ballasting the Joys of Life RailwayHello,
I posted the following on the Joys of Life Railway website a while back, thought you may be interested in seeing it posted here.
When replacing ballast on the Joys of Life Railway, the first job to do is to dig a small trench down the side of the section of track you are going to replace the ballast on. Because all the track panels are welded together you have to get a flat garden spade and dig out the ballast from under the track panels at a horizontal angle. As you would expect the old ballast was is full of roots which is what’s preventing the ballast from draining
After this time-consuming job is completed you lay a strip of geotextile underneath the track, this is to prevent roots growing up through the ballast again, and then a ton or two of fresh ballast is poured in between the sleepers along the section of track and brought up to the correct level & even gradient with the help of some home-made profile gauges, the final job is to shovel pack the track from the ends of the sleepers.
|
