Track work - 24 November

Good progress had on Saturday with our current challenge - to connect up our mainline with the rail vehicle shed yard at Maymorn. We split up into teams - sorting and moving 50kg rail for mainline, loop and yard work, adding sleepers to the frog set of the double slip, and rail work associated with our new road 2 turnout.

Double slip

We set to and cleared out ballast under the frog and cheack rails at the Upper Hutt end of the double slip, and sorted through a small pile of 3.0m and 3.4m turnout sleepers for  reuse. Sleeper locations were marked out to plan and most were screwed down by the end of the day.

Road 2 turnout

Mainly rail work on this turnout, being 91lb 1 in 7.5, with 4270mm switches. The geometry of the turnout is a little challenging, as its split to sharpen up the strike of the ladder road of the shed yard to maximise the length of the sidings. We checked the intersection points of both the ladder road and the turnout, rechecked location of the frog and alignment through to the road one turnout. A switch was also presented to the left-hand stock rail and a start made on setting and crowing the rail. 

We will continue work on the turnout over the next few weeks and hope to have the yard track connected to our mainline by the end of December.