We had another successful day, with the turnout now back together, just needing tamping, tidying up and then some clean gravel to re-make the filled area.
This morning started with one of the heaviest frosts we’ve seen in many years – frost was still on the ground in areas around 11am.
We’re pretty happy with how it’s come up! It’s not perfect as we’ve replaced old 1884 rail with slightly older 1883 rail, albeit in much better condition, but at the very least it’s a big improvement. It certainly wasn’t viable, or even really any benefit, to increase the rail size here at this stage, especially while we’ve got a good supply of 60lb rail suitable for this situation – spot repairs.
We’ve used a mixture of ‘S’ screws and dogspikes to really try to hold it in place, the old dog screws that were in there came out very bent so we don’t think they’re quite up to the job in this situation.
Tomorrow’s crew will get this finished off and begin on the other side of the V crossing- the V crossing is holding together very nicely so we don’t really want to tempt fate playing with that until we have to, however the section just past it, is in a very sad state, so while in the area we’ll fix it up.
Meeting Maldon Yard from 8am.
VGR Civil Blog 