matacaster
On Moderation
"With the experience gained from the conversions to date, the final conversion of gauge was planned with meticulous detail. The general manager at Paddington issued a fifty-page manual of instructions, followed by another thirty pages for the superintendents of the Bristol and Exeter divisions.
Preparations at the track-site were equally as thorough. Ballast was cleared, facing points and complex crossovers made up on site in advance, nuts and tiebolts oiled and freed, new rails and every third sleeper or transom on existing track measured and cut and standard gauge locomotives dispersed to strategic locations on broad-gauge trucks.
At daybreak on Saturday 21 May 1892 over 4,200 platelayers and gangers were assembled along the line ready for the task. All broad gauge rolling stock and non-essential engines had been worked to Swindon, whereby at mid-day on Saturday 15 miles of specially prepared temporary sidings were filled with such a collection of rolling stock and locomotives as will never be seen again.
The conversion was planned to be completed by 4.4 am. on Monday 23 May and it was! This is shown by the fact that the Night Mail from Paddington to Plymouth on the Sunday had been booked, in the instruction issued on 30 April, to proceed from Plymouth North Road to Penzance at that time, which it duly did.
Thus in less than two days 177 route miles of main line were converted from broad to narrow gauge with the minimum of interruption to traffic. A truly magnificent feat of engineering and organisation."
The above information was copied from
http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/RailSteam/GWRBroadG/BGHist.html
With the availability of computers, planning software, engineering and other technological advances such as massive cranes, CWR trains, I was just wondering how people thought Network Rail might fair is they were given this job to do today?
Preparations at the track-site were equally as thorough. Ballast was cleared, facing points and complex crossovers made up on site in advance, nuts and tiebolts oiled and freed, new rails and every third sleeper or transom on existing track measured and cut and standard gauge locomotives dispersed to strategic locations on broad-gauge trucks.
At daybreak on Saturday 21 May 1892 over 4,200 platelayers and gangers were assembled along the line ready for the task. All broad gauge rolling stock and non-essential engines had been worked to Swindon, whereby at mid-day on Saturday 15 miles of specially prepared temporary sidings were filled with such a collection of rolling stock and locomotives as will never be seen again.
The conversion was planned to be completed by 4.4 am. on Monday 23 May and it was! This is shown by the fact that the Night Mail from Paddington to Plymouth on the Sunday had been booked, in the instruction issued on 30 April, to proceed from Plymouth North Road to Penzance at that time, which it duly did.
Thus in less than two days 177 route miles of main line were converted from broad to narrow gauge with the minimum of interruption to traffic. A truly magnificent feat of engineering and organisation."
The above information was copied from
http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/RailSteam/GWRBroadG/BGHist.html
With the availability of computers, planning software, engineering and other technological advances such as massive cranes, CWR trains, I was just wondering how people thought Network Rail might fair is they were given this job to do today?
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