Well as promised today was a day of re-railing. 30 lengths were installed, actually a new record yet again! There is still some drilling and spiking to do tomorrow but overall it’s more or less fit for traffic.
The day started out as a glorious fog, cool but not too cold. These pics show where we were aiming to get, it’s actually not the two rails in the foreground but those just beyond.
By 9am we were well into it, with the first of the 60lb unfastened and removed.
Here the excavator is just about to bring over the 80lb ready for plating and spiking down.
Before morning tea we’d manage to place 6 lengths of 80 into position and about half of the 60 had been removed.
Lunch time and all the 60 was out, most of the 80 roughly in place with drilling and spiking well under way.
A small hold up in the form of a very bogged excavator set us back a few minutes, but with some strategic propping and side slewing we finally had it back on dry ground – no pics unfortunately, we were all too busy trying to get it out!
Nearing the end. The farthest group is at the end of the job, while the close group is spiking down the dogs already drilled and started.
Here Tony is heading back up the hill after we’d decided we’d done more than a good days work. You can see we’ve only spiked 1 in 3 so far in this area, the rest of that will occur tomorrow, about 1/2 of job still requires the 2 in 3 to be spiked but this process is actually quite fast. As we managed to fit in a tamp bringing all the sleepers up hard under the rail, saving much time when drilling.
We’ll be out tomorrow finishing off and we are quite low for numbers so any extra hands will be greatly appreciated! We’ll also be running a rail train so there will be plenty to keep the excitement up.
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