More Steel
Feature article
by Max Fish
Saturday 29 March 2003, Canberra
Today saw CPH 37 again take up work train duties, carrying us out to the same worksite as last time.
The long straight up from 332.000 km has the worst sleepers on our line, something that hasn't escaped the notice of our engineer.
Alan Ward, John Cheesman and Ray Brown and others had been out on the line during the week dropping more steel sleepers.
Tired of having the jewellery shop crew carping about his slow progress in inserting the sleepers in the line, he also put in about 30 ready to be clipped up. That should keep them busy and the noise down.
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| Speaking of jewellery, here are two pictures of a clip and forged T-piece.
Before anyone comments, they are around the wrong way! The clip engages the T-piece from its other side. |
| The Flying Toothpick has had a little dental work to better cope with the steel sleepers. A flange has been welded onto the end of the fixed jaw to slip under the bottom edge of the sleepers.
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| They sell used sleepers for garden edging. Some we took out would be better put in the garden as compost.
The dark patches in the ballast are not dirt but what was a sleeper. This shot also shows that in places, we replaced more than the 1 in 5 or 6 we had initially thought. |
I said that Alan wanted to stay well in front of the clipping up crew.
That orange dot in the background is the clipping-up crew.
Alan looks unfazed on the Flying Toothpick. Also note that the Rockulator next to John Cheeseman has its parking brake engaged. It is a 1 in 40 grade we are working on.
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| Continued in next column... |
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Continued from previous column...
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The sudden closure of the Menagle bridge meant that we did not have to fit our trip out and back between the Xplorer as usual.
RTM ran a member's special to Canberra to deliver our four ex-Southern Aurora sleepers, and in the afternoon - you guessed it - we each wanted to be in Queanbeyan at the same time! |
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We were held at the branch up 1st home (12F for those with a track diagram) for the return RTM train to work through. Some of us walked in to be ready to set the road.
With Control's permission, Simon Cowling exchanged the electric staffs 'on the fly' with the observer of 4916. Unattended stations and the demise of electric staff sections is making this a rarer sight.
For the record, 73 steel sleepers were inserted and clipped up. We have completed the steel sleepering required at this location. A few wooden sleepers are to be inserted under joints.
It was considerably faster leaving the wooden sleepers for another day. The last sleepers went in the curve below the straight at about 332.200.
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