26th-August-2008, 15:08
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 122
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Wayfarer Sleeper Repair 2008
Wayfarer Sleeper Repair 2008.
The repair was organised by CRAG (WWW.CRAG-ORG.UK) to be done on the 23-8-2008. The plan was to replace some of the sleepers and to re-lay others. This would mean taking new sleepers up to the Wayfarer. One problem was, we did not have any sleepers to hand. So, John Pugh of CRAG had the tasked to find some. John decided to ask Wrexham county council if they had any we could have. We got 6 sent out to a holding house. But when we had a second look it was decided that we would need more. John then, with cap in hand, went back to WCC asking again. We (the royal we) meaning John got them to give us another 6, 12 in total.
The call was put for helpers for the day. Members of CRAG were happy to give up some time to help out as were members of GLASS (www.GLASS-UK.ORG). So the day before I went to the holding house (Thanks Mark) to pick up the 12 sleepers. Loading them up on the Friday would save time on the Saturday.
Saturday came, first job of the day was to meet Mark and have a full English breakfast, very nice as well. Making our way off the tarmac road and up the un-surfaced Wayfarer road. We got to the second gate, just as the local farmer came chasing up on his quad. He was not in a good mood, as he had seen us taking a big trailer up where most people would have not, he thought that we were going to steal something. When he saw that the trailer was full and I explained to him who we were and what we had planned he was fine and even happy with this.
[IMG]http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/Paul_Humphreys/Wayfarer%202008/DSCF1916.jpg[/IMG]
It was slow going with the trailer in tow, but on the way up we were joined by a GLASS member. I drove onto the sleepers and we started to unload them where they would be needed.
Here is a prime example of CRAG and GLASS working together, one on each end of a sleeper lol.
[IMG]http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/Paul_Humphreys/Wayfarer%202008/P1010100.jpg[/IMG]
But it was about ½ hour before anyone else turned up, at this point it was looking like a long day!! As it happens, 17 people turned up in total. These were made up of members of CRAG, GLASS, Powys 4x4 response and a TRF (Trail Riders Fellowship) members. We did have an offer of help from others but it would have meant too many people in the same area. In all the repair took about 3 hours with the people we had. This included “nailing” the sleepers into place. The nails were provided by John, these were 10mm diameter and about 20” long, that was the smaller ones!!
We used all 12 sleepers and relayed another 25-30. The sleepers near the end will just about hold up to another winter, but we do need another 20-25 sleepers to complete the work early next year. Anyone got any they can give us?
More pictures can be found at http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/Paul_Humphreys/Wayfarer%202008
Thanks to all that helped out.
Paul Humphreys
WWW.CRAG-UK.ORG
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