Gary H

I reckon Big Jim would be up for painting one of them! He's normally quick off the mark with such things.

Today it finally happened!! Saw my first ever 70. I was in Riverside yard, Exeter unloading some S&C timbers and 70 801 excelerated away heading in the Taunton direction with a long rake of Falcons. I must admit to finding the whole experience fairly impressive! I was pleasantly surprised. The loco was being throttled up to full power, the sound reminded me of a 60 and a 4REP in all in one. Would have made a great video but it took me completely by surprise.

The vicinity of the webcams is within a marker boarded worksite that is ofcourse then within a T3 possession. Any movement within a worksite in a T3 is carried out at no more than walking pace. It is however the COSS's responsibility that anyone signed in on his COSS form (aka the safe system of work) is made aware of any potential movements within the worksite, this could be RR machine, On track machine (tamper), engineering train etc and that movements can be made in any direction on any line! You then sign his form to say you understand this. As regards to walking along the track in a worksite, a certain amount of common sense is also called for but its generally understood that you can walk on any line within a worksite, movements permitting obviously. If something like a train is about to move within a site, everyone is made aware of said movement before its made. Sometimes within a worksite, maybe where engineering trains are moving, the safe system may require lookouts to be positioned to protect staff but that is fairly rare. I do know that on that particular job at Dawlish before it became a T3, (high street environment) the UP road only was specified to be used as a walking route because most of the machine movements were on the DN. I do hope Ive not got any of that wrong as Ive just completed a big load of assessments on such things

Just seen a very lengthy engineers train pass Dawlish a couple of minutes ago in the up direction on the rail cam site. Wasn't hanging around either!

GE use Siemens traction motors in their loco's. The GE's in the U.S also make the same motor racket at speed and with the throttle open. Must something unique about Siemens motors.

And just to add, one guy can opperate the hoppers in the rake with a remote / belt pack. A flick of a small electroinc toggle is all that is required now. The auto ballaster has taken away alot of the fun of running ballast. Spent many a happy hour on Seacows and Dogfish hoppers in years past! It used to be a job i enjoyed but like so much else on the railway now, its simplified and mechanised and takes much less espenditure and man power than it used to. Riding along to or from the ballast job in the Shark plow van is another activity consigned to the history books, atleast down this way at any rate.

The closest ive got to seeing one was about half a mile away at Dawlish I could just make out the headlight above the cab. Not even seen a Freightlner example yet in any shape or form! Mind you, ive not even seen a real live Pendolino yet either but im not in to much hurry to do that anytime soon!

As far as i know, there's still on going work to finish repairs at various sites along the wall , between Dawlish and Dawlish Warren Martyn (maybe some others to) . A colleague (fencing suppervisor) along with some contractors are renewing the complete steel fence between the Station and Kennaway tunnel on the seaward side this weekend. This was in the pipeline to be done anyway before the storm early in Febuary.

No probs! Welcome to the forum.

Got all weekend to do it aswel, should be a piece of cake! (or pastie / pasty).

Christ, thats 1 and 3/4 mile's then! Maybe it was 8 and 6 chain?

I just finished up working 2 nights there and was informed it was becoming a T3 possession early this morning. (Usual disclaimers apply)

That task has been pretty much on going from quite soon after the line was severed. Ive seen about half a dozzen PC's and another similar amount of trailer cars on Alleys wagons over the last few weeks going up and down the 38. Laira also have some of their fitters working and digging away at O.C aswel! NR are footing the bill for the lot.

Whilst we're on the subject of over priced rubbish, how long has this piece of crap been on for?? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LIFE-LIKE-PROTO-2000-SOO-LINE-CLASS-ALCO-RS-27-LOCO-415-DCC-DIGITAL-WEATHERED-mw-/111046815927?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item19dae7f0b7 The other side of it really is worth a look, looks like someones thrown it from a first floor window!

Popped into Dawlish Warren today to drop off 4 pallets of concrete trough lids ready for the cable route through the breach site. The cable route works through the new track are being started on Wednesday, so all that cable over the temporary bridge will have somewhere to live permanently once again by the weekend. The troughing gang are certainly up against it as they already have an on going cable route job at Aish near South Brent that still has to be finished on time and also more cable needs to be run out through the slip site west of Dawlish station! Still lots of work left to do yet! My next little assignment is to drop off about 10 tons of brand new steel fencing that I think is going along Marine parade. By the amount Ive seen in our yard at Plymouth, they must renewing the whole lot of it. That's my Wednesday night / Thursday morning job sorted. Meanwhile............ Looks like the guys are taking out the plant rails! Looking at that picture, Ive a feeling the fencing im taking there maybe running along the new wall. No doubt Il find out soon enough!

They have actually glued the ballast at the Plymouth side of the station! Its certainly not PVA though I was watching a fella the other week trying to break out some of the remaining glued ballast with a pick axe to attend to some axle counters, the stuff was like concrete and he was really struggling to break it up! Ive seen the 45 gallon drums of the stuff they use. Not sure what it is exactly, maybe some sort of resin but its pretty impressive! You would think it would break up as you walked on it but its absolutely solid. Im not sure of any problem it would cause with maintenance tamping though, maybe a tamper would penetrate it no problem but I don't know. I reckon this new track could be glued in due course.

Yep, "plant rails" or slave rails. These are all temporarily joined with faseta clamps and fish plates to enable the RR machines to run over them as they get more panels. Im fairly sure about that as me and a mate hand balled about 200 of each from pallets onto my truck last week specifically for the job and it was abit of work out for us!

Go to Start, all programs, accessories, snipping tool. You can then drag your mouse cursor around the screen capturing what you want, rather like a screen grab. When finished, go 'file' and save as (call it something), job done. Then post it in the thread like would a normal picture. Anyway, I cant even find the dam page for the webcam. Seems there are loads of em apart from the one I want to find! Anyone got a link please?

You could also use the snipping tool within Windows Accessories I reckon.

Indeed, couldn't agree more with that either! I can see both sides of the argument. I hasten to add, It was a point raised by some, not me specifically, I just listened!

Its abit of a bone of contention with some folk, especially NR staff. I was involved in a discussion about this last week with a colleague whilst in Dawlish. He remarked that with the current 'set up' of this 'street construction environment' you have in essence untold numbers of non railway trained construction staff milling around all over the shop and no body knowing who where or when save perhaps for the signing in and out board at the entrance. On the other hand, if it was a railway construction environment, all staff would be signed in with their relevant COSS, and given a safety briefing by their COSS for that particular site of work and signing to say they understand it. All the COSS's would also be signed in with an Engineering supervisor (E.S) who is in charge of the whole worksite. A much more professional and safer method of working IMO. But there it is! At the end of the day, the job's still getting done anycase but the point was raised to point out the contradictions.

Im very sure that wont be used for the cable route, David. The cable route all along the sea wall has its own concrete trough route that runs along the up side, opposite from the black pipe on the down side. The black pipe will be purely for cess drainage I would have thought.

Good job Jim. I wana know how they perform compared with our "other stuff".

There were certainly a few square miles of very 'red sea' when I was there yesterday! It would have ended up in the sea sooner or later anycase, without any human intervention I reckon.

Looks like a couple of days old but worth a look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IIiED7SMF0