Sleepers

We actually had an extremely successful day today, for the first time, we used the big digger for inserting and tamping sleepers.

The little digger is currently out of action, with a fairly major hydraulic issue (it’s actually a simple issue, but a very major fix – involving removing most of the ancillaries (like fuel and hydraulic tanks etc…) to access a simple failed relief valve. We’ve made the decision that given sending it out to contract will likely be extremely expensive, we’ll put that digger on the back burner until the steam engine is back in action, when we can make use of the workshops at Castlemaine for a few weeks to pull it apart. Until then, the big digger will substitute.

It’s certainly nowhere near as suited to the task as the little digger is, however it did prove to be quite capable, albeit a little slower. Unfortunately we did develop a small leak in the grabs after the 55th concrete sleeper. However, while that was being fixed, we did manage to get all of those tamped up.

We’re probably about 1/3rd completed between Boundary Track and Sawmill Rd now and we’ll continue with this on Thursday.

We had such an impressive gang size today, so we sent half of the gang off sorting, cleaning and stacking sleeper plates at Muckleford.

We know that everyone was just itching to do this task, however luckily a few were willing to hang back and clip up the sleepers.

Thursday’s gang will meet at Maldon at 7.45am or out at Boundary Trk from 8.15am