Track relaying work at Shipton station on the Cotswold Line, on Sunday 5 October 1997. An Atlas 1604K road rail excavator shovels ballast up to the edge of the newly laid steel sleepered track. Note the mould in place in the foreground for the thermit welding of the rail sections. Unusually, apart from this token ballasting, there was no ballast train in the vicinity, and when the line opened in the afternoon, something I have not seen before or since happened - the passenger train traversed the unballasted track (admittedly at reduced speed).