We did pretty well this week, a total of 441 sleepers were installed, this takes us well into Curve 18.

Nothing out of the ordinary today, but a few pics to follow.

What not captured well in these pics is all the cleaning up that has gone behind the work front, which leaves the job looking so much better.

We’ll be back into it Monday from 8am at Maldon, or on site from 8.15am. It’s only a short week next week so we’re unlikely to break any records, but it should still see us very near, if not well into, the next cutting.

Nothing too earth shattering today, just more of the same, however we did manage a power of work, clipping up the remaining 150 odd sleepers in curve 19, before tackling a further 80 sleepers getting us into Curve 18.

It was all going like clockwork… until it wasn’t, when the little digger had a hose blow down by the main boom pin. This is very much a symptom of age unfortunately and given this one has gone, the others are probably only a matter of time away, we’ve got enough parts now to do a repair tomorrow that’ll keep us going for a while at least. It’ll be an enormous job to replace all those hoses, as they run back to the main valve block, meaning more or less a full strip down in that region just to gain access.

After a cuppa, the big digger was called in to substitute, it does the job sort of, with much less finesse and about half the pace. It’s real time to shine is the heavy lifting.

Using the big machine we managed to get half the extra 80 sleepers under and clipped up, leaving only 40 to go tomorrow, which should be very comfortable, even if we’re delayed repairing the little one.

Meeting on site from 8am tomorrow (by the 87 mile post).

Just one pic today, the 2nd pass of sleepers are now inserted and clipped up, leaving tomorrow as an action-packed day of inserting the remainder.

There won’t be a formal workday tomorrow, as it will be a day of excavator work to get the sleepers under and tidy up the timber sleepers etc etc…

Thursday however will be all systems go from 8.15am on site (8am at Maldon) to get everything clipped up. If all that goes to plan, we’ll likely do an extra 50 or so sleepers on Thursday Afternoon.

Another successful day. However, it did end up a bit hot and humid by the afternoon.

We managed to get the 1 in 4 treatment complete around Curve 19 today, putting us in a good place tomorrow to start the infill.

It looks quite good from the vantage point up on the hill.

Tomorrow’s weather is looking like possible rain, however we’ll plan on working as normal, meeting Maldon 8am or on site from 8.15am, if the rain gets too heavy we might call it an early day.