These two are a right pair of clamp-its!
Our friends at the Cavan and Leitrim Railway (C&L) at Dromod in County Leitrim are working on a project to install a new passing loop at the ‘country’ end of their line at Clooncolry, to enable them to run round their passenger carriages at each end of the line.
With two turnouts to install, one as a sprung point and one to be controlled from a ground frame with some sort of facing point lock mechanism, their volunteers need a solution to enable safe working of public trains across the turnouts. The solution is to use point clamps. Point clamps are designed to stop the possibility of the point blades moving as a train passes over them.
Point clamps aren’t something easy to buy in Ireland. So, C&L contacted us to see if we could help by lending them two to see them through. We went better than that. We have proper facing point locks across all of our passenger lines now, so we offered them two suitable spare point clamps to keep. They’re also lockable, so a padlock can be added to prevent any unauthorised tampering.
>Adrian Dawe was part of a deputation from Dromod who made a very long visit to Downpatrick at the weekend using public transport, and had a very long trip back again with heavy point clamps in their backpacks. Now that’s dedication.
We’re always happy to help another friendly railway where possible. We wish C&L all the best with their ongoing expansion plans.
