It has been a while since the last post, holidays etc. - Mike reports Saturday 20th April saw a good squad meet up yet again at Broomhill, the order of the day was many track jacks and much jacking and packing of the newly installed switch and crossing (S&C) at the North end of the run-round loop, followed by Georgie's requisite  "now tidy up the ballast boys"!    By the time Mike took the above photos, David (been away - injury and a wee trip to New Zealand) and himself had been tasked to oil all the S&C fishplates  and tighten to the correct torque, whilst ..read more

Saturday 9th saw a good squad assemble in anticipation of much visible progress with our 12 tonne Rail Crane, alas it broke down almost immediately, necessitating Nathan to make a wee trip to Inverness to get a part sorted/made.  Mid afternoon recommencement of the big lift  and this was the scene at close of play at a late 6pm! Thanks to John for photos and of course all that attended. By Thursday 14th Georgie and I believe Fergus had been busy rebuilding the switch recorded above at the start of another mid week day with a good turnout (no pun intended!) Our aim to inse ..read more

Sunday 2nd March saw a brave John doing his second day in a row and Richard his THIRD on the PWay  John reports - 3 hours of digging out more ballast and another two lengths of removing the dreadful elastic spikes all but killed them, so they were very grateful to see Rob turn up to assist. Alas the Colmar Road Rail machine wasn't able to slew the track, even under Georgie's expert handling --------------------------------. Wednesday saw Fergus and Georgie in a bitingly cold but dry wind, coax the trusty Muscleman (above) back into life to continue slewing, alas it did burst a pipe ..read more

A few of us had a Friday off work, so where else would we go for fresh air and exercise! Rare photo above (Richard, Ian, Michael, Roddy) Michael actually working!!! Possibly with the encouragement of Ian. In the glorious sunny morning digging out the switch and crossing was completed. And after a rather smoky lunch, we had digging out the remainder of the plain line to look forward to, in the event it was easier than anticipated, as the wee clamshell bucket saved us a lot of heavy digging, although we were getting rather tired, Ian and Richard with Georgie sighting marked out the new ..read more

Georgie got a new very handy attachment for our Road Rail Vehicle - a clamshell bucket able to scoop the ballast in between the sleepers - saving a lot of manual back breaking shovelling as photo'd by John officially on the Grantown Extension on Saturday 17th February It made digging out the plain line easy  alas the switch and crossing still problematic requiring the manual sweat of John, Richard and Ian - 180 feet plain line dug and 2/3rds of the switch.  ------------------------- Yesterday me and Mike had a couple of hours digging almost to the nosing of the crossing bu ..read more

Small but capable squad met at Boat of Garten on Saturday  and Georgie said the dreaded words - "a bit of ballast tidying boys" All headed out to Kinchurdy Straight and proceeded to tidy ballast and create decent cesses  possibly the last, for the time being.    Thanks to Georgie, Andrew, Fergus and Mike for photo/info -------------------------------- The following Saturday saw the start of a new project - the replacement of the run-round switch at the North end of Broomhill Loop and replace four panels of track beyond. Commencing at Boat of Garten.  Big eno ..read more

Sometime ago now - 9th December 2023  - Georgie says to us "a bit of slewing boys", she gave Fergus detailed instruction on how to operate the slewing jack as he had never had the pleasure before (above) and I was on the lifting jack, with Georgie sighting. Process was - I put jacking pole on railhead slowly walking towards Georgie until indicated to stop with direction of slew, I jack up track vertically, Fergus digs a perfectly angled hole in ballast below opposite rail and heaves the slewing jack under it and starts pumping the handle to hydraulically slew the track horizontally ..read more

As anticipated a large squad assembled at Boat of Garten on Saturday, in rather damp but milder weather,  our P'Way train took the Squad to the worksite at the Aviemore end of Kinchurdy straight, preceded by the Jacker Packer, which John Sinclair our Plant Manager has been doing a long term re-build on, he was fortunately on site for a couple of teething problems - loose ignition lead and fuses and Ian managed to operate the machine the whole day, Fergus being its attendant, with Mike and Martin manually packing the inevitable missed sleepers due to the joints and Georgie levelli ..read more

Report/Photos from John - "Despite the Met Office Amber warning of heavy rain being as close as Aviemore, a good number of volunteers still assembled at Boat of Garten on Saturday to receive our tasking from Georgie - the intended re-sleepering was deferred, as she was yet again called upon for Operational duties at Aviemore. Plan B was tidying ballast at Kinchurdy, we did linger in the dry comfort of our BG/Messroom listening to the rain battering off its roof and wondering about our sanity!   But in the end, some had travelled considerable distances to get here, so we headed ..read more

Mike recently did a Track Inspection and checked that the water was going into the water tower at Boat of Garten and spotted passing traffic below! Only Ian and me managed another extra P'Way day (Georgie was otherwise occupied - de-icing switches and salting platforms etc) on a cool sunny last day of the year at the Milton Lade, close to Boat of Garten. Task self evident from below Before After Seems there is an old crack on the spandrel wall, more or less below Ian but we can't blame him! - It appears to have been repaired in 1961. We also cleared the vegetation and debris ..read more