Autumn

No sun, no leaves, November... but the occasional train has run, and some serious replanting has started along the front edge at Dottendorf.

Summer trains

With the rebuild complete, minor repairs and upgrades have continued, and trains have been running.

And the damaged light at Birkenhof proved to be repairable, and has been reinstalled.

Work continues

Gradual progress is being made, with Holzapfel restored to the network, albeit with further work required.

With the long viaduct completed, attention has turned to some work at Birkenhof. Additional battens to raise the height of the front edge have been installed, providing a better ballast retainer. In one area, a small "rock armour" section of larger stones was used to block a gap.

One light at Birkenhof has been repaired, but sadly another, rather nice, lamp has suffered probably from the blackbirds and is unlikely to be restorable.

Trains running again

From a 7m gap in the circuit to running trains again...

The new decking boards are again supported on timber legs, but this time 75mm square posts held in place with metal spikes. I was pleasantly surprised actually to be able to get spikes into this part of the garden, given the generally stony nature.

With the new boards installed, track (re)laying could commence.

Nearly there - one last piece to cut and fit. And soon there were trains running again!

Track reinstatement begins

The first section of rack to be relaid has been installed at Holzapfel.

The ivy has been removed completely (well, insofar as one ever can remove ivy completely) and new decking boards installed.

This time, thicker edge boards will be used throughout - in odd places where I'd used thicker materials before, it had weathered much better than the slightly smaller section I'd used in most places.

Load testing (electrical conductivity testing, more to the point).

Ballasted, and good to go. The eagle eyed may observe that the halt has yet to be reinstalled.

Major engineering works on the H&DLR

The line between Holzapfel and Birkenhof is now closed to all traffic. The wrecking crew moved in today; it's mildly depressing how much quicker it is to demolish a railway than it is to build one.

With the track lifted, the next stage was to remove the decking boards.

One particular board was the driving cause for concern. Most of the other sections were in reasonable condition, given that they'd been there for 17 years.

It was the supporting fence posts where the major problems lie. These have all been removed and need to be replaced as they'd all rotted where they were in contact with the soil.

There's a big gap to fill at some stage.

And a similar job needed at Holzapfel, where the redundant siding has now been lifted.

Easter engineering works

Easter engineering works completed between showers. It is something of a bodge job, but splicing in replacement board can often be so. Fresh ballast hides a multitude of sins. 

Spring repairs and updates

Last year saw some relatively minor (if awkward) repairs under Birkenhof station while the General Manager continued to ignore the subsidence further along the line. This year, that will be addressed, and some materials have already arrived with more in the supply chain pipeline.

Already, the green edges to the long viaduct have been removed. One particular decking board is suffering from extensive rot, but while I'm in there I shall probably replace the lot and drive in at least one new support as one has rotted away.

There are sundry smaller areas of rotting timber, of which this is probably the most serious. The decayed timber has now been removed, and will be replaced with plastic in the near future.

Trains do, though, continue to run.

Winter operations

Last year was a poor year for running trains on the H&DLR. During the autumn and early part of the winter, predations by the blackbirds (mainly) have uprooted four platform benches, broken two lamps, demolished a building at Holzapfel, dislodged the scenic items in the loco siding at Birkenhof and thrown all the accumulated moss all over the track, and scraped all the earth down the bank onto the track. There's no immediate prospect of trains running all the way round. Apart from that, everything is hunky dory...

There was definitely another building and a platform bench here last year.

Well, the lamp at least still works.

Moss liberally strewn around the railway.

I don't think this lamp will work again, which is a shame because it's a very nice lamp (and it wasn't a cheap one, either).

There's a railway under there somewhere.

The most frequently operated train on 2023 was again the first one out in 2024.

Although a short inspection train did get as far as Birkenhof.

Summer running

Well, this report starts with yet more track repairs to try and improve connectivity through a key set of points.

399.03 has been out and about.

The substantial rebuild that saw an LGB motor block fitted under the tender seems to have worked out well as the loco sees more use than ever before.

The Stainz have been running on the Steiermärkische Landesbahn set...

And for the first time in a couple of years, Pearse Europa class live steamer "Camusterrach Pier" came out to play.

And no, neither "Camusterrach Pier" nor the Stainz were running as fast as these photos suggest!

A slow summer...

It seems to have been a slow summer with few running sessions. Urgent repairs haven't helped, and indeed the repairs described in the previous post were only fully completed a week ago. Some little wedges intended, I think, for use laying tiles have been repurposed to level the track along the outer loop at Birkenhof.

At the same time, the wiring to a key platform lamp was also repaired. The lamp in question illuminates the "Kurzzug" or "short train" stopping point and is vital for evening operations when the operator cannot see how far the train has got at the station!

It's likely that I'll need to lift the points at one end of the station as the blades on one set (at least) don't seem to be conducting much electricity. I'd quite like to replace a very old LGB set with some TrainLine 45 ones, but they're not available in the UK and, post Brexit, what were my usual suppliers won't ship to the UK.

Urgent track works

Visitors to the H&DLR have noticed that the main running lines through Birkenhof station are not the level playing field they once were. The base is four parallel pieces of decking board, with a cross piece at the (staggered) butt joins to provide both support and a level join. Of late, a number have failed, and an attempt to bodge it only made matters worse. So much so that the cross piece then simply fell off. Slightly to my surprise, in general the problem isn't that the tanalised decking pieces have rotted. It is, I think, that the screws holding the cross pieces have rusted and no longer hold the assembly together firmly, allowing the decking boards over time to have dropped or twisted slightly. By yesterday, the situation on two of the lines - the main running lines - had deteriorated to the extent that trains really could not run.

Action was required... I was never really able to work comfortably under the boards, and 16 years later that's even less true. Anyway, some considerable effort later and we're nearly there.

Not perfect, the left hand most line still needs some attention, but that's (probably) long standing and all three lines are once again open to traffic.  

Still can't work out what's happened on the long viaduct, though. A video survey(!) of the underside shows no broken joints, and although on the top edges of the board there's extensive rot, the underside is in good condition. But it's definitely dropped, as you can see, and the green edging has broken fairly recently in a couple of places as well.

 

Spring is in the air...

For the first time in nearly 6 months, a train finally went all the way round the H&DLR again.

New year, new loco...

Probably the longest period ever on the H&DLR with neither a post nor indeed any trains moving. It seems to have been a long winter; normally that doesn't stop the trains, but this time it has. In better news, track cleaning and repairs have started.

Blackbirds and no doubt other creatures have been scraping back the earth on the bank in search of food, with the consequence that the track has literally disappeared in some places.

But in an encouragement to press forwards, a locomotive ordered 15 months ago has finally arrived.

It's a model of the East German V 10C locomotive, built in large numbers for industrial railways in a variety of gauges. Märklin have just released the outside frame version, in the blue livery of the Mansfelder Bergwerksbahn.

More to follow when trains can actually get all the way round the track again!