Muckleford

Today was all about finishing off the bridge inspection at Muckleford Creek and whilst there, some tidying up of the area.

It’s been a few years since we’ve had a good tidy up around the piles. There wasn’t a mass of debris, but it’s better to remove it, and we needed it gone to inspect properly anyhow.

The bridge inspecting is extremely exciting stuff, with lots pointing, hitting and drilling, with a bit of ladder work to get a better look at the bit that you can’t quite see from the ground. By the end, we had a very good system in place to ensure we covered all components systematically.

Morning tea by the fire was a nice treat.

Once the works at the Bridge were in hand, we went into Muckleford and with flames on our mind, set about beginning to burn some of the many burn piles there.

While there we didn’t just burn, we did all a few other jobs, lube the turnouts, pick up buried steelwork that rain had uncovered and tidy up lots of scrappy timber bits just lying around.

The fires all burnt down very nicely, and we consolidated a couple of them as one was pretty dirty and wasn’t really getting hot enough to burn well.

A couple of the issues we identified were some very prominent splits which had very recent grown significantly.

These were drilled and bolted, one of the first proper uses of the new impact drill – being able to bore a 25mm hole through a 500mm diameter pile, one handed while up a ladder is a pretty remarkable improvement over any previous drilling method! It’s a real game changer. Everyone was very impressed, including our new recruit, Nathan, who spent his first day out with us today.

Next week’s plan is to get back into resleepering, there’s still some dropping out to be done early in the week, then we should be right to bash in a good few sleepers. Monday’s crew meeting Maldon 8am or near Donkey Farm Trk from 8.30am.