Plaistow junction

The West Ham to Plaistow area will be dealt with soon because of the impending installation of the centre siding at West Ham.
This will mean the slewing of the current EB track to the far left hand of the Greenway span and the new siding entrance/exit to the right of it.

As a PW engineer said to me years ago: 'Doesn't matter if it looks good; I bet it still has chair gall!' ;D

Looking closer with, now ex-District colleague, Seth at the plans for the new pointwork at Plaistow/West Ham siding we had overlooked something quiet detrimental to the future good running of this layout.

We know that there will be a centre siding at West Ham, connected at each end to the east/west bound tracks- granted.

What has so far failed to be mentioned is that when the work is finished the WB exit from the retained Plaistow bay and platform 2 will ONLY be into the new siding!

This must now mean the siding will have to be colour-light rather than shunt-signal as previously envisaged?

This will certainly avoid the current clash of an ex-bay (or pfm2) train blocking both the EB & WB while it negotiates the pointwork but will surely delay EB trains more as it snakes out of the bay-road into the new siding?
Then, once it's in the siding it will have to wait for a clear road WB!

If a defective, or otherwise, train were to be stabled in the new centre siding this would now prevent the use of Plaistow as an east-west reversing point!

I was involved with the drawing of part of the scheme plan, and it was always planned to be colour-light signalled.

The last scheme plan I saw had No.7 crossover at Plaistow retained, with the access to the Siding being from both roads west of the Northern Outfall Sewer; hence allowing reversing at both Plaistow and West Ham.

I'm not sure you've seen what the designers are working to - though I will check.

So the junction finally got new track as of last weekend I'm guessing?

Feels very comfy with the H&C trains. It's an improvement for the District trains too but it still feels funny, probably because the D stock is made of cheese, the shocks are made of cheese and perhaps that's why it wobbles more than the C stock.

Are there any photos of the new tracks?

Seeing as it's you that's asking....

I meant to take a snap before we departed, but you'll have to make do with this one - as you can tell by the car count up markers (blue plate with a 3 on it ), we've just departed West Ham and have just gone onto the newly laid track (see the change from Bullhead rail on wooden sleepers to flat bottom rail on concrete sleepers?). To the right you can see the area that's currently being cleared for the new centre siding:


And here (well, a little in the distance) are the points approaching Plaistow, where the newly laid track finishes - this is now the normal sort of distance being covered in a single weekend possession by the track renewal boys; quite something compared to a couple of years ago when you'd be lucky to see a platform length done over an entire weekend:

Is there any date in the diary for the reversing siding installation work between West Ham and Plaistow to be done?

The date I'm aware of is Christmas.

Plaistow IMR will lose one route (FC8 - shunt from WB to EB or Bay), as any W-E reversing will now be done via the siding.

The IMR is not being extended to accomodate the additional routes; a new SER for the West Ham bit is to be provided adjacent to the existing IMR, with slotting between the two. I believe the SER is now under construction; there was talk of me and a few others going to Westinghouse to factory acceptance test it...

That all depends really but on a large scale track renewal 'panels' are sometimes laid, a panel being a preformed length of ready assembled track i.e. sleepers, chairs and rails already bolted together and crane off flat cars into position once the old track and ballast has been lifted and the trackbed newly prepared.

Of course for a smoother ride long welded rails are laid after the new sleepers have been laid. Note that all plain track is straight, laying it allows it to curve into position as the rails are barred into the chairs.

Points and crossings are another matter entirely where complete layouts are often presassembled to the correct dimensions, disassembled and then reassembled. Points and crossings may all look different but they are all laid to standard geometry in differing turnout lengths and crossing angles.
During the preassembly the stock and switch rails are crowed as required to obtain the turnout radii and to take the spring out of the switches. If the preassembly is well done on site crowing may be avoided altogether during laying and most of the work is then up to signals to install the point mechanism, stretchers etc and do all the bonding.

For short lengths of rerailing rails are usually cut on site. Generally the old rail will be lifted, the new dropped into the chairs as far as possible and cut to fit. There is skill involved in measuring, cutting and fitting as some allowance has to be made for expansion and contraction depending when the job is done. On a cold winter's night for example undoing a fishplate and removing the bolts can result in a gap of several inches opening between the two rail ends so pulling back machines are used to stress and de-stress rails out of and into position. If the P Way supervisor gets it wrong rails can buckle in the heat or fracture in the cold, in extreme temperatures this is liable to occur at times in any case.

Generally speaking proper track replacement will involve lifting everything down to the trackbed, making good and reballasting. When changing stocks and switches or crossings and relaying a few rails the track may be repacked with compressed aggregate where the bed has become sodden etc to level the track, take the bounce out of particular spots, prevent extreme rail wear and give a slightly smoother ride. This is normally done by hand using pneumatic compactors to pack the aggregate beneath the sleepers.