Pipeline Crossing

Lots of pictures from today’s rebuild of Pipeline Crossing. The weather held out so we went full pelt, knocking it over very comfortably in the day.

The slowest part of any crossing job is the excavation to unearth whatever may still be below the surface. In this case we were pleasantly surprised how ok some of the sleepers still were.

We did this much in the same style as removing mud holes, where 6 or 7 timber sleepers are removed, the old ballast excavated then the newies put under and clipped up before repeating.

We had plenty of hands today, so in the moments when manual work was required, it happened in meer moments!

Correctly spacing the sleepers, certainly give a very nice and professional look to the track.

We even spent quite some effort lining the crossing, only a minor detail, but for the past 20 odd years it’s had a slight kink, which gave the illusion the crossing was actually in the curve, however the curve should start immediately after the crossing, which we seem to have now achieved.

It’s not often we have a truck and train so close out on the track! But don’t worry, the truck was removed from the story before the train was called upon for the ballast drop.

Certainly the quickest and easiest way of getting rock out in a hurry is using the train, and seeing we wanted to get a bit more out up the hill it all tied in very nicely.

With its safety lock removed and the blade lowered, Daylesford’s Plough was once again put to good use spreading the rock. We don’t usually have a wagon in tow when ploughing, however we may consider it in future as this seemed to help smooth out the performance of the plough somewhat and certainly ensured any high ballast was pushed aside for the setback moves, which can be a slight issue with this quite light 4 wheeled wagon.

The end product. We ran quite a way up the hill to get the wagons properly empty, as this 2nd hand ballast does stick to the sides of the wagons a bit.

Following a jack, tamp and tidy up, it was beginning to take shape.

Rather than reusing the old roadway material to make the crossing, we used clean gravel, however the old material was used to reshape the approaches, which were a little agricultural previously.

The extra wagon was used to transport away all the timber sleepers and steelwork removed from the crossing.

A truck load of fresh Muckleford gravel was called in to form the roadway, which has come up looking very smart, we’ve ever so slightly extended the crossing so we can get hirails on and off more easily, as short of going to Muckleford there aren’t many other options here.

Another very pleasing day’s work! Tomorrow we’ll still be working, however out of Maldon, the weather will determine the exact tasks, but likely just working through a small list of jobs near Maldon. Meeting there from 8am.