Not a massive number of sleepers installed today, just 13, down by Midland Hwy, however it sees the section from Rowe Street to Midland Hwy tied up safely once again, allowing the removal of a temporary speed restriction that’s been in place for several weeks.
After installing the 13 sleepers, in what seemed like almost recorded time, we had a massive tidy up of all the timber, tamped all the new sleepers, picked up any remaining steel work, ran a truck back through to Maldon and even managed a bit of tidy up around Castlemaine Depot, collecting all the unrequired rail still sitting around from our various projects over the past few years – loaded onto a wagon for a trip out to the stockpiles at Muckleford.
We’re yet to box up the ballast, however this job inevitably has the potential to make a spark, so today was not at all appropriate given the dry and heavy wind, if we get a dose of rain and everything is damp on Monday, we’ll do it then, if not we’ll bring out the firepatrol unit.
In good / great news, the big digger is now unbroken! It was all related to the solenoid that failed the other day, the exact cause is still a little unclear, likely to do with the valve the solenoid operates, however it now works and removing that solenoid and replacing it replicates the fault, so we’re now confident that’s the issue. Just one to keep an eye on for now.
Given were running ahead of schedule with the resleepeeing but we weren’t sure where we stood with the digger, next week is at this stage a little unplanned, however we do have a few odd jobs to attend to at Muckleford, please check back Monday for details.
VGR Civil Blog 