As time and resources allow, Elsecar Heritage Railway is actively extending its line by a further mile to Cortonwood.
Progress is good and we now have continuous rail all the way, using second-hand track panels obtained from the Network Rail mainline refurbishment between Barnsley and Chapeltown. Although this rail is no longer suitable for high speed train running, it is fine, once renovated, for a heritage railway operating at 10mph.
The track bed has been cleared of vegetation and where needed repaired. Especially, at the entry to the Cortonwood site, the track bed had to be rebuilt and drainage sorted.
The second-hand track panels have been laid along the route and joined together, giving us continuous rail for the full extra mile. The only piece of original rail is in the road crossing at Smithy Bridge Lane.
Although the track is all there now there is much to do to make this operational to the standards required by the Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR) to be able to run public passenger trains.
A Smooth Ride
Look at the track and you will see that it is far from level, more resembling a roller-coaster scenic railway than the smooth ride required for 37 ton passenger coaches. So each panel of track has to be covered in stone-chippings, called ballast, lifted, packed and levelled to give the smooth ride we need. Not only is this important for passenger comfort but it also prevents steel tyre wear on our engines and coaches, which can be very expensive to repair. Ballast can be bought reclaimed from Network Rail, but it has to be cleaned by them before reuse and is only available when they have surplus. Reclaimed ballast costs approximately £10 a tonne and we need around 2,300 tonnes to finish the job!
A Safe Ride and Careful Maintenance
Not only do we have to work on the extension, but it is essential that we keep the current running track and the engines and coaches used on it, in good condition. During 2015 we have been paying attention to parts of the current track that needed work and investing in our engines; it is no good having a working extension if we can not get to it as the current track and engines have failed! Clearly this diverts time and money away from the extension, while essential work is undertaken.
A detailed track inspection was carried out in December 2015 to be ready for the next stage of work and we are cleared to now to pay full attention back to the extension once again - good news indeed.
The extension track has to be safe and robust as we need it to last many years with as little maintenance overhead as possible. Being second-hand track panels, there are components that are life expired, especially some of the wooden sleepers (the cross pieces that the rail sits upon). Each worn-out part is being replaced with concrete rather than wood. This is a time consuming slow process as we move along each panel of track.
The end result will be a robust mile of track to serve us well, with regular maintenance, for the next 20 years of running.
Road Crossings
The extension has two level-crossings; Tingle Bridge Lane and Smithy Lane. Tingle Bridge Lane is the busier highway and the railway crosses this close to a junction with Wath Road. This means that an automatic barrier crossing is needed here. Already the signal box for this crossing is installed with power and the switch gear. You may not have noticed it as it is just a large green cabin, not the romanic image of a white railway signal box. On approaching this crossing, trains will have to stop and the crew will operate the barriers to stop road traffic, with the barriers automatically raising to allow the road traffic to pass again. This automatic train detection to lift the barriers is operated by a track circuit. Where the track circuit operates then the rail has to be welded together.
In early 2016 you will see work underway at our Hemingfield site to clear away vegetation to give motorists a much clearer view of the upcoming railway crossing as they approach from Hemingfield Colliery. Although we have the barriers for the crossing they are not quite long enough for the road, so we have to extend these too.
A team of our staff, in October 2015, undertook safety training on how to manually stop road traffic at the crossing. This means we are now certified to be able to temporary stop traffic to allow a works train to cross over Tingle Bridge Lane, so watch out for trains there now as we will be crossing the road on to the extension in early 2016 to start further works.
The crossing at Smithy Bridge Lane will be protected by gates as it is a much quieter road. These gates will have to be opened and closed by the train crew. So the trip to Cortonwood is never going to be a fast ride! These gates are being constructed from metal, but to look like old fashioned wooden crossing gates.
Cortonwood
Following the swift progress at Cortonwood, following award of £50,000 of funding from the Big Lottery Fund - People’s Millions, there has been little further activity while we await the railway reaching there. We keep the site maintained and protected to secure the investment for the future that has been made there.
We will build a station at Cortonwood and some planning work on how to achieve this is underway.
Security and Legalities
Before we can operate public trains all the railway has to be fenced to stop people wandering onto the track. Warning and safety signage has to be in place. Everything has to be examined by the Office of the Rail Regulator to ensure all standards have been met. We can not just open a railway, we need the necessary permissions to operate to the standards laid down by national governance bodies and law.
Finance and People
All the work we do on the extension is funded by the railway from its own income. It is simple maths that the more tickets we sell or donations received, the more we can invest in growth.
As with all charities, we do not have an unlimited amount of money we can spend and there are always different operating costs and projects needing money which we have to prioritise. So far we have spent approximately £135,000 on the extension, all money generated by railway operations. In 2015 we needed to focus on our engines and existing track which diverted over £60,000 to those priorities. We have income and spend it wisely, but could always do with generating some more! Bear in mind all these project costs are on top of the everyday running costs, like the many thousands of pounds we spend on coal and oils to keep the steam engines running.
People are just as much the key as money. The more people we have working on income generation (so publicity, events, fundraising, customer care etc) then the more money we will generate. The more money we have to spend on projects the more people we need to deliver the projects (so planning, track laying, maintenance, buildings, restoration, electrics, legal, safety, etc..)
We are a merry band of about 40 active working volunteers, so everything we have achieved so far is pretty amazing we think!
You are welcome to make a donation any time, please just call at our station in Elsecar or post us a cheque and of course we would love to use your skills as a volunteer to take the railway further - give us a call!
What next?
So in summary:
- more on legalities around opening Tingle Bridge Lane crossing
- more on crossing infrastructure
- more track inspection, replacing worn out components, ballasting and levelling
- fencing and signage
When will we open to Cortonwood? When the people, money and regulation compliance all come together to allow us to open. We would like to reach Smithy Lane in 2016!
We will keep you updated here on the progress we are making. Thank you for your interest.
