June 12th - Additional
Yesterday evening, 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 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.
|
|
|
|
|
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.
Eventually they were given a couple of normal coats of shed paint to
fnish them. The top and bottom rails were fitted first and then the
third rail added half way between. The bottom rail was mounted quite
high, to allow for ballast height below it.
|
|
|
|
|
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. 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. By this time I
was melting in the heat, so packed up and came indoors.
|
|
|
|
|
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.
Having this wash onto the the weed membrane 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. By 9:30pm, I'd emptied one 850Kg bag.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
June 22nd
Further gravel washing and
spreading continued on the 22nd, filling the area across the end of the
track, closest to the hawthorn hedge. This area ended up taking a full
850Kg bag to fill it. |
|
June 23rd
I spent much of Friday the 23rd
decanting the three remaining bulk bags, into six other bags, giving me a
total of nine at a little under 300Kg each. Nothing was done over the
weekend as I was at Fly-In in Yorkshire on Saturday and a local Jeep
event on Sunday.
June 26th
On Monday morning, I got the
Dodge back out, re-assembled the crane and started transporting the gravel
to the bottom of the garden. Eighteen trips from the front of the house to
the back in all. This took me until lunch time. I took seven bags to the
build site and because I may have a little more than needed, dropped the
last two at the back of the workshop. If I need them for the railway, I
can move them, otherwise, they are in the right place for spreading on the
drive.
|
|
Out
of the seven bags dumped on the new lawn area, another two bags of
gravel were washed, tipped into the wheel barrow, wheeled around to the
fence section and tipped out. That was then spread around with a garden
rake, used upside down, so the prongs didn't cut into the weed membrane.
The rake was the easiest way to move the gravel around the sleepers and
rails. Everywhere has at least a thin covering of gravel, but along the
gate and three gaps between sleepers all need building up in height. |
|