A Bit of Ballast

We got in fairly late from Westonbirt last night and were just about to hit the sack when we became aware of a deep droning/rumbling sound outside - the maintenance men were at work on the railway line.

This track is a major high speed route which is degrading and in constant need of repairs to every sleeper, nut and bolt. Looking out and the balcony door open the noise was immense - we could see a long row of bright lights from the carriers very slowly creeping along the track. It was an incredibly impressive sight so...I thought, 'Here we go, a little forward planning..." and decided to see if there was a shot to be had for a blip.

We had seen this all before over the years from a distance but never knew how it worked...never needed to ......... !

There were 20 bulk carriers each carrying 30 tonnes of stone ballast. The stone drops on either side of the train down a chute from the front carriage then the carrier behind replenishes the load by means of a conveyor belt from the carrier behind. This is a continuous process so ultimately at the end of the night carrier 20 at the end, disgorges it's stone into carrier 19 then 18 till it gets up to the front on the belts to drop on the line. As you can imagine it is pretty noisy but very colourful and very bright with the strong lights - quite a sight!

The huge crew and a very startled crew at that, obviously wondered what on earth we were doing taking photos, on a bridge at 1:00 in the morning! I too did wonder.......