Well we finished breaking up the 60lb near Bendigo Road this morning.
We only had about 25 lengths to separate, which was a comfortable number for our small gang of 3.
In the afternoon however we set about replacing the 3 sleepers in a row which had been marked as failed in curve 16.
However we very quickly decided that the marks should not have been on all three sleepers, rather just 2, as 1 was still in very good condition.
So we replaced those two and picked on two other nearby failures. As we happened to have a few concretes nearby, they were our insertion of choice.
It’s also a good test to see how concrete will go in this poorer ballast, so far we’ve been very impressed that we’ve seen no signs of pumping or working in similar conditions.
Unfortunately however…. We did break one of the grab hydraulic lines on the digger just after inserting the first concrete sleeper! Which meant we had to install 3 without grabs and in a cutting.
Some cleaver and gentle manouvering with the forks ended up being quite successful, will all 4 clipped, hand packed (because the digger couldn’t operate the tamper while broken) and boxed up before the spare part arrived back! A quick visit on Monday will see these receive a proper tamp.
We’ll have gangs running on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday next week, where we will be tackling re-railing in tangent 20-21.
VGR Civil Blog 