It didn’t take us too long today to get the straight lengths of the new turnout installed.
We’ve fastened everything up, right to the toe of the points, however we’re yet to fit and spreader bars etc… so for the time being the temporary end of usable track is much as it was previously.
This turnout has been built to a much lesser standard than our usual jobs, mainly due to its main use being only on the straight and we’re also scratching for sleeper plates and pandrol clips for turnouts now, so we’ve done the best we could with what we had available. We’ll beef us the fastenings on the curve when we get to that part.
It’s all starting to come back together now.
Thursday’s crew, should have much better weather. Meeting at Maldon from 8am
Today was all about preparing the various components needed to build the turnout next week.
Of course, all the point timbers we needed were at the bottom of the pile! So, most of the day was dedicated to sorting them out. However, we got there, and now the piles look much neater.
We also laid out all the bits of turnout we had on hand, to begin working out what went where.
We didn’t lay it out exactly, but we determined which rails will be used where in the turnout. We had everything we needed – you’d almost think we’d had a bit of practice.
The view from the platform shows the headshunt taking shape.
We’ve had an extremely successful week in our fund-raising efforts through the buy a sleeper campaign, raising around $40,000 of that this week!!!
To ensure we can continue getting these sleepers installed, we still need to raise a bit more. If you’re able to help, in any way at all, we’d get there in no time!
This was on the back of the truck to greet us this morning.
So we set out to just past Pipeline Crossing and continued on with the fishplate changes.
We got quite proficient at the task, and we’re now about a third of the way to Donkey Farm Track (we’re probably not quite that far but it makes us feel better to think we’re that far through!).
We’ve decided that a pallet a day is quite enough, so just after morning tea we picked up the removed plates and headed up to Maldon.
Once back at Maldon, we set about doing further work on the headshunt. First job was to remove our temporary buffer stop.
This was all to aid us in getting in additional fill to complete the levelling of the ground beside the shed – getting in by road wasn’t an option given all the other stuff we had in the way.
After a bit of additional dismantling, so we could level the bit we didn’t quite get to last time, we set the laser up and worked the fill back until we had a nice even surface.
Some important measurements to locate the turnout and plain track were made. Followed by the marking up of the sleeper spacings.
The disassemble bit was quickly reassembled, to help in bringing in the sleepers.
As the only real opportunity to drive a digger along the roadbed is now (as once the turnout is built we’ll loose all access) we set about dropping them out.
It was a good few trips back and forth to drop out the sleepers, however much quicker than carrying them in by hand.
A trolley load of sleepers got us to this point, needing only 4 more to complete the plain track. From this point, the turnout begins.
As part of this process, we needed to move a pile of gravel we had stored exactly in the way of everything in the compound, whatever we did it was in the way. So we set about spreading it, Will managed to make a total hash of it with the digger, thankfully John’s effort of the Telehander improved the situation greatly.
By the end of the day, it was a massive improvement, much less lumpy and a lot smoother to walk over.
Tomorrow’s crew will be continuing with the turnout building works, we’ll be organising the timbers, rails etc.. ready to get it all built next week. Meeting at Maldon from 8am
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