Scrap track?

Rockhopper · 28 Jun 2019

There are hundreds of concrete sleepers piled up around the old Seymour Junction just outside Chesterfield. They must have been there for getting on towards twenty years now.

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deltic08 · 28 Jun 2019

mcmad said:
Believe some were used on the refurbishment of the engineers sidings at Millerhill itself while the rest no doubt just went back into the central stores (at Whitemoor?)

What a waste of money in transportation. There were thousands in the stack. I believe again they came from Leamside by lorry but hope they went back by rail although they were stacked some way away from a siding for ease of loading.

grove · 1 Jul 2019

As the OP, thanks for these really interesting insights.

A related story is in the news today. https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2019/07/01-network-rail-makes-british-steel.html

Flying Phil · 2 Jul 2019

The redundant track and sleepers, as panels, from the straightening of Market Harborough station, were last seen on the back of lorries on the A14, going to March depot?

33117 · 2 Jul 2019

Do network rail still sell on old concrete sleepers & lengths of rail to preserved railways?

Esker-pades · 2 Jul 2019

33117 said:
Do network rail still sell on old concrete sleepers & lengths of rail to preserved railways?

Yes. And signalling (the old semaphore signals from Aviemore are now owned by the Strathspey Railway) and footbridges and any piece of useable infrastructure.

Ben.A.98 · 2 Jul 2019

FelixtheCat said:
Yes. And signalling (the old semaphore signals from Aviemore are now owned by the Strathspey Railway) and footbridges and any piece of useable infrastructure.

That wasn't a sale, it was part of the contract with the Strathspey for the use of their land over the time taken for the upgrade works.

Though yes, signalling assets and other materials are sold on by NR, track can be bought through Whitemoor, other things come through in an email from the redundant assets team. Most recently Dyce and Inverurie signal boxes were for sale.

Deepgreen · 3 Jul 2019

Bald Rick said:
Quite so. If the job is running tight the first thing to go is picking up the old stuff. And it is much easier (and cheaper) to do a ‘campaign’ clear up every couple of years on a given stretch of track. When I was on renewals we always ended up leaving our sites spotless, and we cleared up the last few years’ worth of maintenance detritus as we went. If I had a quid for every spent cutting disc we’d picked up I would have retired by now.

Sadly, the campaigns also now seem to have been sacrificed at the altar of cost and opportunity. The mountains of abandoned scrap materials, including rails, continue to grow and the longer it's left the harder it is to clear.

furnessvale · 6 Jul 2019

Deepgreen said:
Sadly, the campaigns also now seem to have been sacrificed at the altar of cost and opportunity. The mountains of abandoned scrap materials, including rails, continue to grow and the longer it's left the harder it is to clear.

I wonder if it will reach the stage where it could be profitable to clear?

On my extensive travels over the past few days, I saw ONE line on the WCML with a considerable length of old LWR in the 4ft and a good length with 4 spare rails in there.

Steptoe · 6 Jul 2019

When the Norwich to Brandon line was relaid some (12?) years ago, some of the scrap track panels were gifted to the Mid Norfolk Railway. These were from the sections in the vicinity of Wymondham Junction and delivered on flatbed railway wagons by the contractors as it was deemed to be cheaper to do this than pay for a path to remove them elsewhere. the only stipulation was that the MNR had to unload the wagons within a (very short!) time so they could then go and fetch another load.

Unfortunately (but remembering gift horses!) these were the accursed system of flat-bottomed rail spiked to wooden sleepers however some of the panels have been reused in sidings and others broken down into components.

153375 · 6 Jul 2019

IIRC the line between Boston and Skegness was renewed using recycled track, sleepers and ballast from the WCML about 10years ago.

Bald Rick · 6 Jul 2019

153375 said:
IIRC the line between Boston and Skegness was renewed using recycled track, sleepers and ballast from the WCML about 10years ago.

When ballast is recycled back into the track, it goes straight back where it has come from via the ballast cleaner.

Ballast recycled in the ‘depot’ goes off to be something similar to MoT type 1. But quite a lot counts as contaminated waste as it has 190 years worth of dump toilets in it.

DarloRich · 6 Jul 2019

Bald Rick said:
But quite a lot counts as contaminated waste as it has 190 years worth of dump toilets in it.

Whitemoor has a washing facility for ballast. The waste comes out in a suprisingly small solid cake.

Once washed the ballast can go back into circulation

Scrap track?

Rockhopper

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grove

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