Started off as a wheely good day!
Having to replace not 1 but 2 flats on the big digger – it’s bizarre, it can be years between tyres then they all come at once.
Anyhow, that was fixed up pretty smartly and we were back in action.
The aim today was to improve the line of the track over the bridge, a thing that happens mainly due to crippled rails on the bridge and the aging timber allows just enough movement for it to look ugly.
We’ve got plans to rerail. However, if we do that, we really need to resleeper also… and if we do that, we’ll disturb the deck, and it’ll need a full renewal… it’s never an easy fix on a bridge, however its perfectly safe for another few years undisturbed, and we’ve got more than enough on our plate for the next few years.
So in the interim, to improve things, we had a run of rail joints on the bridge with minimal gaps, so to help reduce the rail stress on the bridge, we’ve broken the track and allowed it to breath. Normally, we’d allow that to happen and then cut out the excess rail. However, today was a total fire ban, so cutting wasn’t an option.
It looks very strange with the rails parted like this, however the clearance is needed to ensure the rails can move unhindered.
With a bit of encouragement from the digger and the weather, the rails on the bridge did grow a little, we were hoping for a bit more as now we’ll need to cut some fiddly closures, rather than just cutting off behind the first bolt hole. We’ve got a few more joints back the other way to chase tomorrow, so we might still get it.
This doesn’t appear to be a big issue with rail creep, rather that rails on the bridge have always been tight, and being crippled it’s bound to keep occurring.
While we waited for the weather to heat the rail up sufficiently, we tended to a number of very minor issues on the bridge, mainly related to loose bolts. This is a job that is never ending, however a good number were tightened today.
As part of the bridge lining works we did shift the deck in a couple of places, only a few mm, but to ensure it didn’t move back, some blocks were installed against the beams.
In three instances replacement bolts are required, due to damage or ineffective threads (some of these are very old bolts).
We’ve got one more to replace tomorrow as well as cutting and joining up the rails once again. We forgot to grab a pick of the much better track alignment over the bridge, however we’ll endeavour to capture that tomorrow.
First job tomorrow however, is to refit the little digger’s fixed quick hitch cylinder. It was collected this afternoon and we’ve been told to make sure it works incase any adjustments are needed.
Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon at 8am, depending how we go, we might not be out on site until 9am, hopefully earlier.
VGR Civil Blog 