Unfortunately the next few months will seem very repetitive, however while it’s still fresh and exciting we’ll describe the process in painstaking detail!
Yesterday’s very small crew got the track lifted 6 inches and inserted every fourth sleeper.
Today’s crew clipped all those up, removed all the remaining timber sleepers, using mainly just the digger to push them down (there is now plenty of room below them) and collect all that jewellery up before it got buried.
Then it was onto installing other 1 in 4 (meaning every second sleeper was installed), this is to prevent burying any unfastened sleepers – which immediately slows work to no end.
Followed up by the final pass where everything missing is inserted. No doubt we’ll adjust and refine this process in due course, however for now, this is easily the quickest we’ve ever installed 118 concrete sleepers! Just over 1.5 day’s work.
We’ve found a few tricks to improve things, such as sitting the sleepers up ahead of time for pad installation, otherwise it’s all gone pretty much exactly to plan!
We’ve decided to not worry too much about track alignment during the 1 in 4 install (it can move extremely easily), as it is extremely easy to re-align while only clipped up every fourth, by the time its 1 in 2, it’s a real struggle to move, once they’re all there… it’s only going to be a production tamper aligning it then.
So far, we’ve done nothing but line the track, the top has turned out as it is just by the act of lifting it, which is staggeringly good conpared to beforehand, we really should have taken a before pic. All the major dips have been very significantly improved, almost like smoothing a rough surface.
We’re very happy with how things are progressing and it’ll get about 200 times easier once the weather cools a bit more!
We’ll be out again tomorrow, meeting on site from 8.15am.
VGR Civil Blog 