No additional sleepers today, however a good amount of tidy up and fixing a few small dips.

It might not be overly obvious, however these show a before and after of the dip removal process. None of these are really what you’d deem significant given our low speeds, however it’s nice to tackle them while we’re here.

In a slight error of basic mathematics yesterday, we reported this week had seem 210 sleepers installed, that should really have been 280 sleepers! Which makes a lot more sense as we had seemed to cover more distance than last week.

The gang also set about counting the remaining sleepers to Pipeline Crossing, 681 to go, which all being well is only two weeks worth of work, however we will allow a little longer to be safe, certainly by the end of April, which will leave us with a good bit of time to tackle new and exciting areas while we’ve got 5 days of track access.

Monday’s gang will be starting at Maldon 8am or out on site by Pipeline Crossing from 8.15am

Another successful day today, getting out weekly total up to 210 sleepers and noticeably into Curve 17.

We did have to change a could of fishplates, to accommodate the concrete sleepers, however that was an easy fix.

After what seems like being stuck in the cutting for ages, we’re out the fresh air again.

Tomorrow, we’ll be starting at Maldon at 8am as we need to repair a few things and do some basic maintenance ready for another big week next week. We may not get out to site until about morning tea, where we’ll tidy the old sleepers and generally prepare the site for trains this weekend.

Another successful one today, with the 1 in 2 pattern completed to the end of Curve 18 (just behind the digger in this pic).

The ballast in this section is very organic, nice and rich garden gravel really these days! As anyone with a healthy garden knows, organic life leads to very rapid timber decay and that is exactly what we experienced through this cutting, well over 50% of the sleepers, although looking ok on top, we’re essentially none existent underneath. Now we’ve removed the organic matter (wooden sleepers) this issue should quite rapidly disappear. Once we’ve finished tidying up and cleaning the drains, it’s unlikely to give us much trouble. The beauty of this method, lifting the rails 6″ is that even installing sleepers in the steep cuttings, we’re not having to dig into the roadbed at all, so even if the ballast is substandard, it’s the same substandard it’s been for many years without any clay mixed in.

It’s looking pretty snazzy now, with such a long section completed. We’re still not finished clipping up this section yet, however that’ll only take a few hours tomorrow and it’s possible we’ll decide to do a bit more.

Meeting Maldon 8am or on site from 8.15am.

The glorious 51mm’s of rain hasn’t overly dampened our spirits and given how dry it was in the lead up, there is barely any mud around, the earth seems to have acted like a giant sponge.

We’ve aimed for a relatively conservative number this week, however given the progress of today we’ll likely achieve right through to the end of Curve 18.

We’ve managed to get approximately 30 sleepers under today and clipped up, which gives us a good chance of getting all the intermediates in and clipped up tomorrow.

Meeting at Maldon 8am or on site from 8.15am