Bridge Work

We had an extremely successful day today, with most of our list of jobs ticked off by early afternoon.

The main one being the moving of the beams back to where they should be, we bought along all the gear to do a lift of the bridge deck, however when push came to shove, a very gentle push from the digger corrected the beams almost effortlessly! We did however loosen a few bolts first, which probably helped.

A lot of time was then spent aligning the deck and in turn the track.

Before we’d begun aligning the decking.

After alignment! Hopefully the difference is obvious. There is a slight wiggle still a little further on, however we’ll get that one with the re-railing as it’s more of a crippled rail issue.

It was then time to pin the decking in place, which involved fitting 4 of these blocks to each span, from the abutment to just past the roadway.

This was a relatively simple process, whereby 2 screws were installed into 2 adjacent deck pieces, preventing the deck from going sideways, hence hopefully holding it exactly where it should be.

While on site we fitted up new Low Clearance Signs, which should be nice and obvious! But the most noticeable thing is definitely the repainting of the white pile sections in and around the roadway, very obvious now.

The other massive task completed today, as though the bridge work alone wasn’t enough, was a very heavy hand slash of all the level crossings and a massive section around the Winters Flat Bridge, which looks very impressive now.

We’ve even installed a notice, stating what to do if you hit this bridge! It’s simply to call Castlemaine Police so that we can be informed and then deal with it.

Tomorrow’s tasks will focus heavily on bolt tightening, all to the Castlemaine Side of the roadway, the bulk of the other side was completed today while up in the air.

We’ll be meeting at the Bridge from around 8.15am/8.30am.