Challenge completed!
Three of our institute members – Dieter, Florian, and Alexander – had the opportunity to participate in the Practical Track Work Challenge organized by The PWI at the Llanelli & Mynydd Mawr Railway.
During the challenge, they gained practical experience in:
Surveying the track
Manually replacing sleepers
Extending the track
Maintaining rail joints
It was a unique opportunity to experience first-hand how track maintenance used to be done – completely by hand. Today, most of these tasks are performed by heavy machinery, which made this challenge all the more impressive in showing how demanding the work used to be!
A big thank you to the great teams from Colas Rail, Network Rail, KGJ Price (Railway Contractors) Ltd, and everyone else involved—and a special thank you to Helen Rowe for her excellent organization!




