Sorry for the lack of recent blog posts, it certainly hasn’t been due to inactivity.
Last week saw us undertake some quite different odd jobs, including the removal of several geometry issues at Maldon.
It was over a long section, so the trusty laser was used to make it much quicker, which it worked very well for.
We recovered 3 stay concrete sleepers that slid down embankments during resleepering several years ago… can’t rush these things, can you.
A large number of sapling regrowth around the level crossings at Muckleford were removed and poisoned – greatly improving visibility around those.
However, it was all leading up the rerailing of 1 road Muckleford. For years we’ve been inspecting the rail along here- all reclaimed 80lb rail of less than good quality, saying wouldn’t it be nice to replace this with some better rail. We’ll that’s what we did this week.
Monday’s crew pulled spikes and clips before the rail was swiftly swapped.
We’ve replaced the old various length rail with 41m 80lb rail, meaning along the whole platform there are now only 3 joints rather than the 15 or so there previously.
Monday’s crew also found the energy to break up most of the old rail, before being rained out in the afternoon.
Tuesday’s crew ran along and did the clipping up first, followed by a bit of lining work to remove the odd twists and kinks that the old rail insisted on conforming to.
Sleeper plates were installed, holes drilled and dog spikes driven. Resulting in the Down leg being all but complete!
There are one or two minor jobs to do tomorrow, but essentially it’s all done. However it’s now time to prepare to rerail the UP leg, we’ll move the rock, prepare the new rail and generally gear ourselves up to start rerailing the up side tomorrow, with the aim to make that next week’s project.
Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon 8am or at Muckleford from 8.30am
VGR Civil Blog 