Wensleydale Railway receives track design support from rail and engineering company

Wensleydale Railway in Yorkshire has received support with track design from a rail and engineering company based in Essex. Track Engineering Construction Services (TECS) Ltd sent three of its staff to visit the Wensleydale Railway between Monday 12 and Wednesday 14 October. During the visit, they surveyed the Railway’s Leeming Bar yard and Bedale station curve, and gathered high-quality survey data. TECS provided the staff support without charge. It has now offered to use the data that it gathered from the surveys to complete the track design work that the railway needs in order to remodel the Leeming Bar yard and Bedale station track relay. Wensleydale Railway sees this work as part of its efforts to forge partnerships with industry. Further details of the Railway’s Industry Partnership Programme can be found on its website, here. Wensleydale Railway is led by its volunteers, and provides heritage railway services to the local community. Its train services and station facilities offer tourists, families and transport enthusiasts the opportunity for a day out in the Yorkshire Dales. The Railway is 22 miles long, making it one of the longest heritage lines in the UK. It operates heritage diesel train services between Scruton (near Northallerton) and Leyburn on the outskirts of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Its restored historic stations have won awards, and give visitors the opportunity to learn more about 1900s railway life through free guided tours with living history interpreters in appropriate costumes. Wensleydale Railway events this year have included an industrial diesel day in August and a model railway show in May. I’ll be assisting with the designs for a reconfigured layout at Leeming Bar yard and a renewal of the track through Bedale station, where a sharp curve alongside the platform makes for an interesting challenge. After 15 years as a track designer, it’s genuinely rewarding to put that experience towards a heritage line that depends on people giving their time and skills. It’s a reminder of why I enjoy this profession. Mat Powroznyk, Senior Track Design Engineer at TECS