Sawmill Road

Lots of pictures today, now that our Thursday photographer is back on hand.

It all went very much like clockwork today, with pictures telling the story perfectly.

There is always something strangely satisfying about the destruction portion of the job… gentle is probably not a word to describe us when we’re in this mode.

The roadway was actually in excellent condition, most timber was still good and the road-base was bone dry, clean as clean and a rock hard base to match – ideal.

We did give it a thorough roll with a nice small roller this time, certainly not the ground shaking excitement of a 8tonner, but it was more than adequate to compact the tiny layer of loose stuff we created.

Well ahead of any anticipated schedule, we had the rails more or less in place.

A quick bit of cutting and bolting up marked the very final end to the mainline 60lb rail and the re-railing program (there’s plenty of little bits we’ll do here and there, but no more 60lb to remove).

Some fine tuning of the line was made before the big ballast effort begun.

We have installed a drain on the north side of the crossing should water ever find its way in, however it’s probably a massive overkill.

All jacking was done using the laser method – once the grade is set, it all happens so easily.

We didn’t manage any action shots, however the crib ballast (between sleepers) was compacted with the jumping jack and nicely levelled, twice, to ensure a very firm base exists for the asphalt.

We’ve also replaced a few timber sleepers either side of crossing, with the being the final clip installed as part of the rerailing project.

The council has done an excellent job helping out with this project, at this stage the asphalt will be between the rails only, however they’re supplied crushed rock for outside the rails, for easy removal later on to continue the asphalt outwards.

The team helped to compact the first layer of this before calling it a day, we feel like we’ve set a new all time best for quickest and least hassle crossing renewal, all that planning has paid off!

We’ll go into a few more details of just how significant this crossing rebuilt is in relation to the rerailing project tomorrow night. Today’s is big enough on its own!

The asphalt arrives at 9.30am tomorrow and we’ve still got a bit to do before hand, meeting on site, Sawmill Road, from 7.30am