After replacing the 9 failed timber sleepers with concrete, near the bridge, we set about removing the rather impressive dips that were present in the straight off the bridge.
If you compare these photos to those from last week, the significance of these dips is quite noticeable, often requiring 75mm lifts to correct the issue.
We cheated somewhat, using the laser level, set to the gradient, to make the lifting far more uniform and notably quicker, than by eye.
The results however do look quite stunning.
Once we were happy with this section, we headed up to the next bridge, where a similar issue existed, very predominantly on the UP side of the Bridge. A similar method was used to achieve a more uniform gradient between the bridge and a point approximately 100m away. It looks great, but still needs a little further attention but we’ll let that lift settle before returning later in the year (lifting too high always ends in unstable geometry, better to do it a few smaller passes).
We could go forever doing this work. It is certainly more in the wheelhouse of a production tamper, but we do ensure anything reaching a significant state of roughness / defect is corrected with our machinery.
With the low sun, the bright ribbons of steel were very visible from up by Midland Hwy Crossing as we re-installed the 25mph speed board, now able to lift the 15mph restriction over this small stretch. It looks quite impressive we must say.
Tomorrow will be an odd jobs day, preparing for the track walk on Thursday and Friday, so there is no workday tomorrow.
Thursday’s crew will meet at Maldon at 8am, with their comfortable walking boots ready!
VGR Civil Blog 