Well we’re back into it! Resleepering with 100% concrete. We’re starting at Donkey Farm Track and heading towards Muckleford Creek Bridge, replacing the last 1350 timber sleepers remaining between Maldon and Muckleford.
Being a short week and settling back into the swing of things, we’ll most probably only get 130 under this week, however that’s a good solid start, taking us right up to the start of the curve.
There is still plenty for tomorrow’s crew to do, lots of clipping up and tidying up. Meeting Maldon 8am or out at Donkey Farm Track from 8.30am
Today saw us dodge (sometimes successfully) rain showers as we replaced 14 failed timber sleepers in the platform road at Muckleford.
This wasn’t overly onerous as we were using concretes as the replacement.
We also tackled a couple of point timbers that missed the last round of changes, 1 in the Dock road and 1 in the down end 1/2 road turnout.
Always an awkward endeavour on these 80lb turnouts, the point chairs are designed to almost impossible to get the sleeper fastenings past the chair bolt! There are a few tricks that can be used, but they are time-consuming.
The next timber was not as bad, however all the fixing locations had gone bad, so it’s easier to swap to a freshy and cascade this to somewhere less critical.
There was a notable gauge fault, non critical, but certainly likely to worsen over time, so bringing all this back to gauge was the main reason for the works – this wide gauge is quite historic, hence once corrected, some significant turnout and interlocking adjustment was required.
We’ve adjusted everything back to its happy neutral spot and checked its correct operation, some slightly bent blades always increase the difficulty in making this work smoothly however we’re very happy with the resulting job.
The Pedestrian crossing at the UP end of the station was refinished with some clean road-base, and with this afternoon’s rain, it should settle nicely.
The gang was sent home early today due to rain, however the diggers hung back to drop out additional concrete sleepers down towards the Bridge ahead of the resleepering work recommencing next week. Our materials have arrived and were ready to go!
Monday is a public holiday, so there is no Workday, however Tuesday and Thursday will be workdays, meeting Maldon 8am or Donkey Farm Track from 8.30am.
Given the forecast of wet weather for tomorrow, we’ve decided to call off the workday. Thursday will definitely operate as normal, meeting Maldon 8am or Muckleford from 8.30am.
VGR Civil Blog 