Another big day today, with about 1km of rail unspiked and dragged (only a very short way) towards Castlemaine.
We began from just off the Midland Hwy Bridge.
With the crew soon having that length ready for dragging.
Thankfully the digger does the heavy lifting here, giving the spike pullers a bit of a break.
Now that were into the poorer quality sleepers, spike pulling is much easier, with most pulled by hand and the lifters only getting the stubborn ones.
Our little digger is up to the job of towing the rail, but it’s not fast. Next week we’ll be calling in our bigger Hyundai digger to speed things up and reduce the workload.
About half of the rail removed has been towed to the first crossing, with a the rest to make that journey tomorrow.
It looks very different without rails!
We’ve now got a very good system, which will be greatly improved with added towing power.
By close of play we’d made it into the next curve, a massive effort. The much cooler conditions helped significantly.
Hopefully we can maintain a similar pace to this. We’ve still got a long way to go and lots of tidying up to do following rail removal, so please if you can spare a day, join us!
Tomorrow will be anchor removal, ready for more unspiking next week. Meeting near Vaughan Springs Rd. Yapeen around 8.15am (or leaving Maldon around 7am.
VGR Civil Blog 