Another big day for the gang, with two major jobs tackled.
A further 21 concrete sleepers were installed into curve 10 while the decking on Sawmill Road Bridge was secured.
The past few days has been securing the decking on Rifle Range and Winters Flat Bridges (yes every piece of decking on that massive bridge has had this treatment!). Today was Sawmill Road’s turn. The issue can be seen in the above pic, the decking had begun to wander out in places.
The issue is very easily rectified… With a digger. But it isn’t a solution, so a solution was devised.
By drilling through the runner and into each piece of decking, a screw could be installed to prevent any movement.
Winters Flat was such a big job we even purchased a battery powered impact wrench to help, much lighter than any alternative.
The finished product, a simple solution to a irritating problem.
To reach 90% of the bridges we needed this beast, as any other option was just impossible.
While half the gang was playing bridges, the remainder played sleepers.
Exactly the same process as last week, this time without any breakdowns.
Today saw 21 concrete sleepers installed, which was actually 2 more than required to complete the curve, but they were left over and it seemed appropriate to just keep going.
Again the scarifier wasn’t available, so the mud bucket was called upon. If it didn’t tie up the machine, this method would be the quickest and easiest, but it really takes the digger away from its critical jobs of removing and inserting sleepers.
Some fine tuning by eye and tamper left us with another fantastic curve.
We’re yet to sort the old sleepers and grade them for re-use, but otherwise the job here is complete. Onwards to the next curve, with will occur next week on curve 12, between Farmers and Walmer Rd Bridges.
Tomorrow will be some final bridge work at Muckleford creek, which will likely see a close to bridge work for this season, of which a busy and productive season it has been.
Meet Maldon 8am or Muckleford Creek from 8.30am.
VGR Civil Blog 