Warwickslade Cutting Railway

Warwickslade Cutting Railway
Warwickslade Cutting Railway
Route length:	2.0 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Dual track :	Alternative points at the beginning and in the middle

The Warwickslade Cutting Railway was a temporary field railway that was laid with prefabricated sections of track to fill a trench called Warwickslade Cutting , which had been dug in the New Forest around 1850 , with gravel and clay. In 2009 the British Forestry Commission decided to fill in the straight ditch and replace it with a renatured, winding stream.

Project

Goal setting

The containers of the train could be lifted from the carts by a hydraulic excavator with a special grab to fill the trench

Warwickslade Lawn is a nature reserve ( Site of Special Scientific Interest ) and was "in an increasingly deteriorating condition, because the artificially dug drainage ditch meant that there was no seasonal influence on the habitats in the meadows and in the forest." Surprisingly, the course could of the original stream bed from before 1850 can still be clearly identified. The aim of the work was to restore the original stream as originally as possible by filling the ditch. It was necessary to put 10,000 tons of excavated material into the trench, as well as clay to create a watertight barrier so that the water follows the desired course.

Contract partner

The contractors were Alaska Environmental Contracting. They used 8, 13 and 18 ton hydraulic excavators, 10 ton dump trucks on rubber crawlers and an innovative light railroad.

To bring in the 10,000 tons of excavated material, a Morooka MST 2200vd crawler tipper would have had to move back and forth 1,000 times. The contracting parties Alaska therefore decided to experiment with constructing a field railway and laying it up to the ditch, which could be reached via a paved forest path. This was intended to minimize soil compaction because no heavy earth transport vehicles had to be used. In addition, noise and CO ₂ emissions have been reduced. The work could also be carried out in rainy weather. The project cost of £ 214,500 (€ 275,000) included machine rental and labor (£ 106,500) and excavation (£ 108,000).

track

The track could be put together with pipe-bolt connections like that of a toy train

The track was laid from September 2, 2009 on a wide forest path covered with grass. The rails consisted of round steel tubes with a wall thickness of about 6 mm, which were welded onto steel cross bars, which in turn were screwed onto wooden sleepers. A bolt was welded in at the joints on one side in order to be connected to the next rail. As a result, the tracks could be put together from straight and curved track sections like those of a toy train.

The use of the field railway was intended to protect the environment when the excavation was delivered. The Morooka crawler dump truck had a 250 hp engine, while the Boxer 532DX mini crawler tractors used to transport 10 tons of excavated material had only 32 hp. These are vehicles equipped with rubber tracks that were guided on the track with an additional axle. Therefore, there was less soil compaction. The track only exerted a calculated ground pressure of less than 2 N / cm² (3 psi) when a train fully loaded with 10 tons of excavated material passed over it, so that the sleepers were hardly pressed into the sometimes very moist soil. This meant that the tracks could be laid without track ballast.

The screws with which the rails were screwed to the sleepers loosened in places during operation, especially in places where the mini crawler tractors had derailed. While part of the weight was applied to the rails via the additional axle during normal travel, the total weight was applied to the sleepers via the rubber tracks after derailments. Some sleepers broke during operation, especially in sections of the route that were not adequately supported by sawed branches and tree trunks. Because the trains were moving slowly, nobody was injured in the occasional derailment and there was only minor property damage. After the earthworks were completed, the tracks were removed. The project was successfully completed on November 19, 2009.

Trains

The trains were pushed or pulled with caterpillar tractors that were guided over additional axles and whose rubber caterpillars ran on the sleepers

Two trains each consisted of ten white-painted lorries with a removable container. Each train could carry ten tons of excavated material per trip. The two locomotives were converted Boxer 532DX mini crawler tractors on which the drivers stood. You could push or pull the train. The trolleys had plastic wheels that could either run on the cylindrical track or, in the case of switches, on a flat surface. The wheels were mounted with low friction via needle bearings. The mini caterpillar tractors transmitted the drive force to the sleepers via the rubber tracks. At the rear end they had two steel guide wheels, the height of which could be adjusted hydraulically. To pass switches, the guide wheels were raised.

The two trains were used from a newly built depot at Vinney Ridge, where there was a switch to drive a double-track section. One train was loaded there while the other drove 1½ kilometers south towards Brockenhurst, where the track had been laid parallel to the ditch. There, a heavy hydraulic excavator lifted the containers from the carts with a special gripper and emptied them into the trench without having to move sideways.