A major step forward towards the completion of the Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway’s extension into Princes Risborough has been taken. 900 tonnes of ballast was laid on the 800m long Chinnor Independent Line just outside the town during the week commencing 10th March. The track had recently been relaid by volunteers of the Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway Association, the line having closed in 1989 and become derelict since. Work is continuing, with the aim of re-opening the line before the Summer.
Styled “Prima 4”, this was the fourth of the major logistical projects bringing in materials for the line. Prima (Princes Risborough Infrastructure Materials Acquisition) 1 and 2 involved small track panels (pre-assembled, or more accurately in this case previously cut up, sections of track from 15 to 30ft long) moved to the railway by large lorries in September and November 2023, craned across and taken to site on C&PRR wagons. Prima 3 brought 60ft track panels in by train in July 2024, which were craned into position alongside using the railways track relaying machine, a twin-jib crane. Since then the track has been laid, and now Prima 4 has delivered a trainload of ballast to go on top.
The track panels were “pre-loved”; the ballast is recently quarried granite. Bringing it in by train has avoided some 30 full-length articulated tipper lorry movements, and removed the challenges of transferring the load into rail wagons for the final move from a road access point to the locations along the railway.
The ballast was purchased through Network Rail and arrived in an 18 wagon train 300m long at breakfast time on Tuesday 11th March, possibly to the surprise of commuters waiting on Princes Risborough station. Hauled by a Freightliner class 66 loco, the wagons were stabled in the C&PRR sidings, and the loco returned to base.
The C&PRR’s trusty class 08 shunter, 08825, was used to position the wagons alongside the new line, where they were unloaded by road-rail vehicles (RRVs); a pair of Liebherr excavators with operators hired from Quattro Plant, working on the new line itself.
The unloaded ballast was spread and levelled next day by one of the excavators using a specially shaped profiling bucket, while Association volunteers recovered the remaining ballast from the corners of the wagons. (Difficult to extract with the large excavators, but traditional methods came to the fore: blokes with shovels! A network loco returned and collected the empty wagon rake on the Thursday.
Thanks are due to all the organisations mentioned, and especially to the people within them who made it all happen.
Now the track has ballast on it, the next major task is to hire in a machine called a “tamper”. This cleverly lifts the track through the ballast and aligns it accurately for position, height, and cant (cross-slope applied on curves). The clever bit is that it does this whilst sitting on the track it is lifting; it’s rather like lifting yourself up by your own bootlaces!
Once the track itself is finished, all the rail bonding and wiring will be installed for track circuiting – the means of electrically detecting the presence and position of trains. Then the signalling systems can be completed and tested ready for the line to open.
It’s not all good news. Sadly the Association’s 45-year old specialist twin jib crane or “Track Relaying Machine” which laid the track has failed with significant problems to its hydraulic drive. It was very fortunate that the last track panel had just been laid a couple of weeks earlier. The railway is considering whether it can find the necessary expertise and facilities to repair the machine, and of course the funds. It’s possible that it may have to go for scrap. An ignominious end after its sterling work.
The Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway reopens for its 2025 operating season on Mother’s Day, 30th March. The new line won’t be complete by then, so for now trains will continue to run via an adjacent siding owned by Network Rail, as they have done since the rebuilt 4th platform at Princes Risborough station was opened by the C&PRR in 2018. Announcements on when the new line will be opened, marking the culmination of the railway’s Princes Risborough extension project started physically in 2016, are eagerly awaited.