Welcome to SVRLive!

Mid-January 2012

First a question for those of you who think you know the tunnel:
Are there any steps in the brick lining of the tunnel bore?

Once the rail and sleepers had been lifted between Bewdley South down distant signal and the Kidderminster end of the worksite the next task was the removal of all of the spent ballast. Between the Bewdley tunnel portal and the distant signal this was dug out and dumped adjacent to the trackbed by the SVR Permanent Way gang (this will be cleared and/or graded out once the main works are complete subject to sufficient time being available). Within the tunnel the ballast was lifted by the civil contractor and loaded into one of two road rail dumpers that worked on a continuous basis between the site and the sugar beet sidings where the ballast was deposited.

As soon as the ballast between the distant signal and the Bewdley tunnel portal was clear the Permanent Way began laying new bottom ballast working from the distant signal towards the tunnel. The method involved propelling a RUDD wagon full of ballast to the worksite, one of the SVR road rail machines then offloaded the ballast over the end of the RUDD, rotated 180 degrees and dumped it roughly on the trackbed for the second road rail machine to spread it out and roughly grade it ready for the sleepers. Once sufficient ballast was in place the sleepers were positioned at the required spacing after which the rail was lifted into place using a road rail machine at each end of a rail length. The full time gang only did sufficient clipping up to hold the rail in place, the remainder being left to the Bewdley volunteer gang.

The track between the distant signal and approximately four lengths short of the Bewdley portal was back in position and waiting levelling and packing by Thursday 19th. A train of ballast hoppers was worked up to the tunnel on Friday 20th using the Class 20 and the first ballast was then dropped and ploughed.

While the first track items were being installed between the distant and the tunnel the civil contractors continued lifting and removing ballast from within the tunnel and once this was sufficiently advanced they began cutting and installing the new drainage pipework and rodding points along both sides of the trackbed. This work was completed by Wednesday 18th after which the process of importing the new bottom ballast began. This ballast was brought in via the sugar beet site loaded into road rail dumpers and transported to the site where it was off loaded and spread using a 7.5 ton bucket machine. The new bottom ballast was just over half way through the tunnel by the end of work on 20th. 

And the answer to the question at the start of this report is:
Yes - and one of the steps can be clearly seen on the accompanying photographs.

Phil Sowden
Infrastructure Manager

Underground Lines - Issue 4

Underground Lines - Issue 4a

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