Tamping Machine

A tamping machine is an essential tool for every railway, basically packing (tamping) ballast underneath the railway sleepers to ensure the tracks are durable and the ride is smooth!

Our current tamper was purchased second-hand in 1990 and has now come to the end of its useful life.  We have been on the lookout for a replacement for a few years, but options have been too large or too expensive.  Our colleagues at the Bala Lake Railway successfully imported a small unit from China, which our engineers have been to inspect and were impressed with.

We have therefore made contact with the Chinese manufacturer and specified our own tamper which has now been ordered and should be with us by May this year.  The machine will obviously be 2’3” gauge and will be self-propelled.  A video of a similar machine is below:

Our target for this appeal is £8,500 – any funds in excess of that will go towards further track and p-way equipment and supplies (the strong £ means that our previous estimate of the cost of £10k was too high!).

As an additional bit of fun, we would like a name for our new machine - so when you donate please put a suggested name in the comments!  A panel will decide on the best suggestion.