We’ve been quietly working away in the background with our “Big Proper Rail Industry” supporters. This is with a view to help with rail infrastructure work around our site.
Last year we were very grateful to welcome Babcock Rail down to upgrade the centre of one of our farm crossings. We followed this work up last week by welcoming the team from On Track Technicians down to bring the rest of the crossing up to standard. On Track Technicians do a lot of Permanent Way contract work for Translink NI Railways.
Call it lack of money when the Inch Abbey line opened in 2004, or standards simply being much higher now, but we’ve long been aware that our User Worked Crossings (UWCs) north of the Quoile, just didn’t cut the mustard anymore. ThThese see quite a bit of agricultural use. Scrub had grown up restricting sightlines for both train and tractor drivers. The cattle grids were very much a homemade affair, and overall it was firmly in the “could do better” category.
We’ve been talking with the OTT team and our friends in Translink about how best to upgrade these crossings. It quickly became clear there was no point skimping. Physics are the same in heritage and the mainline. We made the decision to go as close to full mainline specification as possible to make them as safe as they can be.
The only exception is the height of the new fencing. OTT happened to have a large quantity of old-spec fencing left over from a Translink job. They couldn’t use this on NIR as the current mainline standard is now an extra 20cm taller. A quick check with the Rail Regulator confirmed the older spec was acceptable in a heritage context.
The team from OTT arrived last week. They proceeded to work on the first crossing to be tackled, with the one previously refurbished by Babcock being the obvious choice.
An incredible transformation
I think we can all agree the transformation is incredible. The team have genuinely gone above and beyond the call of duty. You would be forgiven for thinking you were standing on the mainline.
Hopefully this will make the crossing far safer for ourselves and the farm users.
Huge thanks again to the OTT team. We hope to see you back again sometime.
More information on On Track Technicians and their services, check out their website.
