Major Railwork - Queanbeyan-Hume Improvements
Steel sleepers inserted and two bridges replaced
By Max Fish
Friday, 6 October 2000, Lineside
Taking advantage of the Olympics and its bringing of any rail upgrading in Sydney to a complete stop, the Rail Access Corporation has carried out major re-sleepering and bridgework on the Queanbeyan to Hume section of the line to Michelago.
It is this section of the line which is under Rail Access responsibility as it is used by the log trains operated by Freight Australia.
The re-sleepering involved an average replacement of one in four sleepers with new steel sleepers and the re-contouring and sweeping of the existing ballast between Queanbeyan and 332.200km.
Re-ballasting on this section is programmed for later this month.
Short sections where the sleepers are fine were not replaced but this was compensated in poor areas where new steel sleepers were inserted on either side of a new wooden sleeper which was replaced when the line was initially upgraded last year.
The line rides considerably smoother now. The 22 tonne axle load Ells had been giving the track a beating, and it was showing.
Two of the four single timber openings (underbridges) near the Harman signal frame have been replaced by steel pipes.
The first is the one about 200 metres north of Harman adjoining the stables of the Queanbeyan race course.
This was in poor condition and the track had developed a very noticeable hole at the northern end. We are glad to see that bridge gone!
The second is the northern bridge of the pair between Harman and the Lanyon Drive overbridge. These pair of bridges lay either side of the former Letchworth station site.
In the space of a year, the RAC has repaired or replaced three timber bridges on the line. There remain four timber bridges unrepaired on RAC-controlled track and one unrepaired timber bridge on our controlled track between Queanbeyan and Royalla.
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A Movie for Train Lovers
1210 captured on new medium
By Odille Esmonde-Morgan
Wednesday, 4 October 2000, Tuggeranong
One of our members has obviously been given a new gizmo for Christmas (or some other occasion!) and has sent in a short "movie" of steam locomotive 1210.
The movie is 17 seconds long and shows 1210 hauling the "Spirit of Tuggeranong" train back from Royalla on Sunday, 1 October, 2000.
Now, for those of you who have not tried to view video clips on the Internet before, there are several possibilities.
For a start, if you have a fast internet connection (say at work) and your browser (that's the program you're using to read this web page - usually "Internet Explorer" or "Netscape Communicator"), you may be able to just view the movie by clicking on it.
Alternatively, you may be asked to "Save the file to disk", in which case you should do so, and then view the movie by double-clicking on it wherever you have saved it.
Below are two different links. As always, there are competing standards.
The first link is for a "Quicktime Movie" format. If you use a Mac computer, you should definitely be able to view the movie using this link. Otherwise, the Quicktime movie is possibly still your best bet, and I suggest you try this link first.
It is possible that your computer will decide it can play this movie, but only with some additional software. It's up to you whether you want to download any new software to view the movie.
There is a small chance that the Quicktime Movie will not work, but the second link will.
The second link is for you computer to recognise the movie as an "MPEG video clip" and call up a local MPEG video player from your computer, if it has one.
Finally, if neither of these are successful, it may be that your computer software is just too old to recongise a video clip.
You might like to try the last link, which will take you to another web page that asks your computer to run a separate program to see the video clip.
Please feel free to let me know how you get on.
PS: Odille says she will "try to get a better one next time" !!!
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