Wensleydale Railway - Photo Archive


Refurbishment of Finghall Crossing
by the Infrastructure Group
Over the period 24th to 27th September 2015 the Level Crossing Deck at Finghall lane was refurbished. A great thank you to all the teams involved, Ops, User Works Crossing, and Infrastructure, without your hard work the job would not have been done!
The crossing decking was relayed about 5-6 years ago using non railway sleepers. These had deteriorated and need replacing for safety reasons. It was decided to replace the decking, the sleepers underneath the decking, and replace about 18 sleepers along the length of the platform. On removing the decking and digging out, the existing sleepers were found to be wider, thicker than normal, and made out of hard wood. From what we told were at least 45 years old and were in good condition, only the fittings were showing their age and had to be replaced.
As there was no need to replace the sleepers in the crossing, we decided to replace all of the sleepers in the platform, bar the first 4 after the crossing. A total of 50 sleepers to change. As we needed to replace all of the ballast, a digger was used to dig out all of the ballast from the non platform side, and dug it wide enough to allow the sleepers to be dragged out. Some of the middles of the sleepers were dug out by machine, the rest were dug out by hand.
The new ballast was dropped in using a dumper truck, then levelled off by hand. Two portable tamping machines were used, with great effect. One extra sleeper was changed, just after where we had finished, it was on a joint and was life expired, making 51 sleepers in total replaced. The new decking was made out of hard wood railway sleepers.

Ref - 1290
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - The crossing area with work in progress (25/09/2015)
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Ref - 1290
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - The crossing area with work in progress (25/09/2015)
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Ref - 1291
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - The crossing area has been reballasted (25/09/2015)
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Ref - 1292
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - Starting to put the new surface on the crossing (25/09/2015)
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Ref - 1293
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - Working on the new surface on the crossing (26/09/2015)
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Ref - 1294
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - Removing the old sleepers in the station area (25/09/2015)
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Ref - 1295
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - New sleepers being installed in the station area (26/09/2015)
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Ref - 1296
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - The station area has now been reballasted (27/09/2015)
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Ref - 1297
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - The completed crossing surface (27/09/2015)
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Ref - 1298
Photo - Mike Brittlebank
Finghall Level Crossing replacement - One of the first cars across the new crossing (27/09/2015)
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