With the rails now joined back up, the site needed to be cleared for ballasting and tamping. The equipment and track are loaded onto the Road-Railer trailers to be taken back to Horsted Keynes. The track sections are then unkeyed so that the concrete sleepers can be recovered for further use and the life expired rail sent for scrap. After a delay due to bad weather, fresh new ballast was dropped onto the freshly laid track using two of our ballast hopper wagons pulled by the 09 diesel. As the stone was dropped, the road railer with the plough bucket attached followed the wagons and spread the stone out over the track out to the sleeper ends ready for tamping.
Track ploughing image: Jon Goff | All other images: Mike Hopps
