The Gartell Light Railway started to re-write the history of the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway. As this was the time of the initial works for the road crossing installation at Common Lane, part of the planned Northern Extension. Nearly 46 years after the standard gauge line was removed.
I arrived at 7 ish with the road already being cut and removed. All the work & engineering was carried out by the family's own construction firm - Gartell & Son. Not the time or the place to have volunteers, these boys do this work day in, day out, maybe not railway crossings but you get the idea.
Clearance was swift and nothing major was found under the tarmac, except for the water pipe not being as deep as expected. No railway relic's I'm afraid. Once the trench was cleared, they 'wackerplated' down a firm bed of fine hardcore (quarry dust?) to give the pre-cast crossing a good start in life. The pre-cast crossing itself was done several months ago, if you visited the railway over the 2011 season, you'll have past it on the empty trackbed. It's approx 22 tonne, according to the crane driver.
The slab was craned in & using the latest leveling technology, laser with gps, the slab was lowered into place. On initial contact, the announcement was made that it was 0.03 out on the Templecombe side, everyone thought this was fine. However, the Pinesway side had caught some rubble or something, so it was re-lifted, cleared and re-lowered. This time it landed spot on, o.ooo on the mark they required. But to be certain the spirit level was whipped out.
After thinking about the extension for the best part of 15 years, we've past the biggest hurdle, the track's in. We still have a tremendous amount to do, barriers, track laying, build a station, etc but we're heading in the right direction, towards Templecombe. First stop Tower View.
Please see below the historic day, cheers Steve
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