The East Lancashire Railway has benefitted from volunteers from Network Rail giving up their time to help carry out essential track maintenance on the line.
At the beginning of this month, on Wednesday, 7th June, eight staff from Network Rail’s Square One office in Manchester switched jobs for a day to help make repairs to the East Lancashire Railway in Bury.
Their normal time working for Network Rail is spent maintaining or replacing bridges and other modern railway structures, not historic tracks.
During their time on the East Lancashire Railway, the team replaced wooden sleepers and carried out work on other parts of the track work to the line’s Bolton Street station.
In some cases, they found that to maintain the historic infrastructure in line with traditional methods they needed to use tools over 100 years old.
Further details of the trials of space-age laser and plasma technology used to clear autumn leaves from the line can be found here.
To find out how Network Rail works to protect railway heritage and the conservation work it carries out go to www.networkrail.co.uk/working-with-railway-heritage.
Simon Bishop, Network Rail senior structures engineer, said: “It was great to get out of the office for a day and get stuck into some hard but enjoyable work helping maintain a heritage railway.
“While the trains still run on rails, the modern railway is very different to how things used to be. It’s been really valuable to spend time with colleagues and the team at the East Lancashire Railway learning new skills and helping maintain its infrastructure so it can carry its passengers safely and reliably in future.”
Jeff Armstrong, East Lancashire Railway head of operations, said: “It was a pleasure to see how enthusiastically the Network Rail team took to the heavy manual maintenance methods. They were a pleasure to work with. We all work to 21st-centurysafety standards, so we can always learn from each other.”
Responses