Today we began moving rails onto VGR land, with approximately 30 brought over onto our track ready for loading onto trains.
For various reasons, we have elected to not attempt to use 82m rails in our track, rather we’ve drawn the limit at 55m, with all rails longer being docked in half. Given our lines very very narrow ballast shoulder (due to narrow embankments) we expect we may have issues maintaining lateral stability of the longer rails in the hotter weather – the donor line has very large ballast shoulders and even on it movement is evident. Our available train length also runs out at 55m so a happy coincidence.
In the pic above, Will is using a hired band saw to cut the rail, normally we use abrasive rail saws but given the high fire danger and location of cutting, we decided we’d try the band saw for a week to reduce the fire risk and see if they’re any good – and we had to finish early today because of heavy rain…..
So far so good, it’s probably fractionally quicker than a circular saw and completely spark free but a lot heavier.
Tomorrow will be more of the same, meeting from near Maldon Junction from 8.15am, we hoping to get a few train loads prepared so the more the merrier.
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