Sleepers

Today, we set about beginning a few spot replacements between Maclise and Rowe Street Crossings.

The day began with tree trimming down beside the loco shed at Castlemaine, while the telehandler was at there. Much tidied now.

We’ve aimed for a 1 in 4 type pattern to avoid getting any clusters – nothing here is quite at the critical condition yet, however doing this now will more or less remove the chance of failure due to track gauge widening if a group of sleepers do rapidly worsen.

It was a bit of a change of pace doing spot replacements rather than everything, however, it all came back to us.

In due course, we do intend to replace all sleepers in the curve with Concrete – however, we’ll likely use full profile sleepers and do it in the 100% style to correct the rather irregular sleeper spacings. That’ll be a few years away once the more urgent areas have been addressed.

We installed and clipped up 55 sleepers today, with only about 30 to go to reach Rowe Street (we’ve already replaced a good number of timber with concrete around there).

Monday’s crew will meet at Maldon before heading out, as we’ll need both trucks on hand.