On the theme of working in yards, Muckleford had 3 sections of 80lb rail whose head defects have been on our long term list for replacement.
In the down end mainline turnout, both the curved lead and straight closure rails had some notable defects, these aren’t recent, they’ve been there at least 30 years, when installed these were all that was available. However we’re now reaching a point in our upgrade works where we can divert some attention to these less critical tasks.
It was a pretty simple remove and replace operation, doing only either the straight or curved sections at a time to allow the digger over the other one as required.
Lots of precision measuring and cutting was required as we didn’t have anything on hand that would drop straight in.
Given there is 30 years worth of wear difference some shimming was required but very little thankfully.
A few fishplates changes sped things up a bit and permitted a bit of fresh wood being available to cross bore into.
The third location was in the very UP end of 2 Road, same deal, just historic damage.
The new rail was cut in and spiked down in no time, well rehearsed after earlier in the day.
Besides the rust on the rail you wouldn’t even know we’d been there. Another annoying little job ticked off the list.
Next week will be business as usual, albeit a little quieter given some of us will be away for Cup Day, however the gang will still run for anyone interested.
