Ballast Plough

A Ballast Plough, informally shark, formally Ballast Plough Brake Van, is a special engineering truck designed to clear and level excess ballast after engineering operations. The truck resembles a goods train brake van.

"Jaws" on the Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway in 2007

Detail of the plough mechanism, identical on each end of the plough truck

Operation

The mode of operation is to lower the plough to the rails and to propel the vehicle through the excess ballast

Spotting reports

Date/time	Location	Train number	Direction	Photo	Spotter	Notes
2007-08-06	Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway		In terminus		Tim Trent	Parked at buffers in Kingswear terminus