silverton dont exist anymore but anyone with half a brain would realize what company i was referring to

Ah, I see you have half a brain.
I did not know that Silverton had a new face- only that it had been bought out by South Spur.
I sorry I offended you so bad. You can go tell mummy now.
Cheers.

The following points now have point motors and all linkages installed...

Start points at Seymour,
Crossover just north of Old hume hwy bridge at Seymour,
Crossover nth of Benalla,
Interestingly they have not been fitted as yet to the crossover south of Benalla,
Have not been to Wodonga to check on the points there yet, but it is probable. Can anyone in Wodonga or passing that way check?

Both points for the crossover sth of Wang have been assembled apart from the blades. (on Saturday)

No wiring or cabinets have as yet been installed although there was in SIA worker checking out the cabinet just sth of the Seymour crossover the other day.

Another worker I have talked to said they are considering changing the layout at Benalla. From what I have heard from the two people that have mentioned this is that changes do not concern the Oaklands line but are ment to improve the running of the freighters on the main line.
They appear to be at least going to straighten out the track where the down end points for number 1 and 2 roads used to be.

Thanks for the warning that this train was running, I feel i was a bit asleep for not picking that it would be running.........
I have taken some shots of the train on the west line.
The train is being used to put out the sleepers for the resleepering of the East line. X46 is on the Albury end of the train. Only a single excavator is being used for unloading as they have all the access time on the west line they require.
The photos are taken about 10 kilometers sth of Springhurst ie about 3 k's sth of the Boralma Rutherglen rd level crossing. They started to put out sleepers just sth of the mentioned level crossing that is this is the 2nd day of the train. I would think that it will be running most days until the sleepers are all out.
Train arrived at the site just after sunup, 18 sleeper wagons are being used.
Although the train was only going slow the rail never moved at all a great change for the better.

Things are looking up, I cannot wait to have i ride on this line.....

[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y03yl6.jpg[/bigimg]

8121 on the west line, old SG on the right


[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y03ylr.jpg[/bigimg]

X46 on the move, the train is moving up one length to allow the excavator to do the second pass.


[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y03ylt.jpg[/bigimg]

Unloading the train

Both points for the crossing sth of Wang look to be complete and ready to cut in.

Hey Woodford, great updates and pictures on this thread. Keep them coming!
Have the resleepering teams moved to resume work on the Mildura Line?

I went up to Wodonga and chased the Sleeper train back to Melbourne. It departed around 1540 from Albury. Pictures will be up soon.  It had about an hour layover at Violet Town loop where it had a double cross.

Loco's 8121, X45 & 8177.
Cheers

I went up to Wodonga and chased the Sleeper train back to Melbourne.

I saw this sleeper train at Wodonga Station holding up traffic, why was it stopped at Wodonga?

Crew Change I believe.

Crew Change I believe.

Yeah that is correct, also long lay over at Violet as the train dropped off a wagon in the cripple road due to a load shift.

Went into Benalla this arvo just for the hell of it and was suprised to find the following so I took some photos.....

A set of points being built, in the position they are being built in the tip of the frog is lines up directly with the end of the platform. These are different from the main line points being shorter having only 85 sleepers, they appear to be 500 metre radius so I assume these are for the Oaklands line. The practice they have been following to cut them in is to move the points straight sideways in sections. So this implies the final position of the points.

[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y034y5.jpg[/bigimg]


A shot showing the crossing sth of the station, note the gravel base spreading out towards the bottom right of the photo. I believe this was the original position of the Oaklands line switching.

[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y034ys.jpg[/bigimg]


Because I was there I took this showing the Nunn st level crossing, note the round cover right hand side towards the bottom and the signal in the middle these have to be shifted. There appears also to be another pit  that can not be seen in this shot right in front of the old box "A". Note the position of the Oakland line points half way up right side.

[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y034y7.jpg[/bigimg]

Yeah I would say it is.  I had the day off, live beside the line as well.  Heard a horn at the crossing a few times and realized it was slow, So went to have a look.  Realized it was on the new track and tore inside, Grabbed camera... No batteries!!! Yelled to missus, Batteries quick! Just in time for the back of it.  I realize now just how sad I am at getting excited by this... Oh well, you gotta have a hobby right??

Would this train have had a load at some stage, as it looked empty this trip?

Mick.

Reply a bit late...

Yes it was loaded, took the first lot of sleepers down to the Boralma rd level crossing.

Hey Woodford, great updates and pictures on this thread. Keep them coming!
Have the resleepering teams moved to resume work on the Mildura Line?

I assume so, all the machinery was gone the day after they had finished and the drivers (4 people) I spoke to all had said the next job was 80,000 sleepers on the Mildura line. They would be 6 weeks on that then back to the NE line to replace all of the remaining timber sleepers between Springhurst and Seymour. I beleive that will mean there will be no timber sleepers ( except on some bridges) on the line at all.

[quote="steamfreak" It's interesting that the current plan is to keep Wodonga Coal Sidings in action for log loading.  This makes it impossible for the Bandiana Link road to be completed as planned as it would require a level crossing to be built whilst the line remains into Coal Sidings.  At present the Bandiana Link only allows northbound traffic onto the "new" freeway.  Most of the works are complete for the southbound connection apart from that pesky railway line being there! [/quote]

Trevor, the whole Murray Valley Highway / Hume Freeway Interchange saga is deplorable. The Murray Valley Highway East is the only major highway on the Hume that has no plans to ever be directly connected to the Hume Freeway. It's simply a joke. To blame the Sydney-Melbourne rail line for the lack of a connection between the two highways is a furphy. If they wanted to do it, they could. VicRoads has a pathetic attitude to this matter and should get on with planning a direct connection WITH a rail line in place. The current plan, to expect the public east of Wodonga to take the High Street exit, cross High Street, go around a roundabout then a rail crossing just to exit the Hume Freeway is nothing short of a joke.

I don't think the rail line is pesky at all, it's VicRoads intransigence that's pesky.

Went into Benalla this arvo
[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y034y7.jpg[/bigimg]

Whats happening with Nunn Street level crossing at the moment ?

Has It been put In the to hard basket ?

Could a temporary bypass be put In by running the track along the alinement of the old Oaklands line path across Nunn Street ?

The whole Murray Valley Highway / Hume Freeway Interchange saga is deplorable. The Murray Valley Highway East is the only major highway on the Hume that has no plans to ever be directly connected to the Hume Freeway. It's simply a joke. To blame the Sydney-Melbourne rail line for the lack of a connection between the two highways is a furphy. If they wanted to do it, they could. VicRoads has a pathetic attitude to this matter and should get on with planning a direct connection WITH a rail line in place. The current plan, to expect the public east of Wodonga to take the High Street exit, cross High Street, go around a roundabout then a rail crossing just to exit the Hume Freeway is nothing short of a joke.

I don't think the rail line is pesky at all, it's VicRoads intransigence that's pesky.

From what I understand the road link from the Bandiana Link to the Hume Freeway In the Melbourne direction was not going to be a freeway Interchange, as vehicles would of had to exit at the Lincoln Causeway / High Street exit, cross the Intersection at the traffic lights (at grade) go on to the on ramp (going towards Albury) and exit the on ramp before It gets you up on to the Hume Freeway, then there would have to be a roundabout or giveway sign Intersection with the existing Bandana Link Albury connection.

To do the Intersection properly Vic Roads would need to build 2 side by side single lane flyovers (above Jack In The Box Creek and the railway) that would splice Into both the Hume Freeway and The Bandiana Link, giving a full freeway Interchange and keeping clear of the Wodonga Coal Sidings.

Went into Benalla this arvo
[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y034y7.jpg[/bigimg]

Whats happening with Nunn Street level crossing at the moment ?

Has It been put In the to hard basket ?

Could a temporary bypass be put In by running the track along the alinement of the old Oaklands line path across Nunn Street ?

Its actually very difficult to second guess the project management but a number of ideas spring to mind.

1. I consider the delay here to be quite out of character of the project management. They have poured large amount of resources into this project and appears to have simply stopped here. Because of this I have some confidence that it will be done in a reasonable amount of time.

2. The project is way ahead of schedule, there is probably some sequencing problem here, that is the original schedule called for it to be done at a specified time which has yet to arrive. And this crossing is by far the most complex to do in the whole route.

3. There has been talk from some of the workers that there is significant change in the layout here, if this is the case there would probably be a major delay waiting for hardware.

4. I do not consider that the explanation the the delay was caused because the pits had not been shifted is really reasonable because this project has clearly been managed to within an inch of its life. See point 2 though.

5. The project managment have not forgotten it though, last week an excavator with track equipment fitted and some workers arrived around 0700 in the morning was around for about an hour or so in front of the signal box then left. Looks like some else did not show up.

6 It would not be difficult to put a bypass track in on the path you mentioned, at the moment though it is not really required as the track is NOT complete south of Euroa. And they can and have accessed the southern section from Seymour and from the crossover behind where the photo was taken.

Errrr............there is also always the chance of serious brain fade on the part of the managment though.

Will be interesting to watch this............. We will be able to see how serious they are to complete this.

I went for a tour of the project between Euroa and Seymour to see how it was going and I managed to work out what was slowing this section up.

There are 25 bridges between Mangalore and Creighton 10 of these are within 5 kilometers between Creighton and Longwood. 7 of the bridges in this 5 k's required new decks, if it takes 2 days to redeck and put the track back this would mean 4 weeks to complete this section.
As at yesterday there was still at least one of these bridges (9 mile creek) that required to have the track put back.

Because of this section they have had to split the project up which has of course slowed everything up.

Note, Most of the other 15 bridges appears to have retained there decks but all of require resleepering which on these style of decks is a bit of a problem because the sleepers cannot be slid out sideways. The last of these only appears to have been completed yesterday. There is one not far out of Avenal which has a pile of new timber sleepers under it but i do not know if these are for the West or the East line.

Yeah that is correct, also long lay over at Violet as the train dropped off a wagon in the cripple road due to a load shift.

Dropping a wagon in the cripple road is something which seems to be getting harder and harder to do, in the brave new world of ARTC.

When the loops are abolished, I'm assuming there will be no cripple roads?

Because I was there I took this showing the Nunn st level crossing, note the round cover right hand side towards the bottom and the signal in the middle these have to be shifted. There appears also to be another pit  that can not be seen in this shot right in front of the old box "A". Note the position of the Oakland line points half way up right side.

[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y034y7.jpg[/bigimg]

The round cover is storm water, so the council would be fixing that.

What puzzles me though, why didn't they erect the new points in its final location ? Its not as if the track isn't blocked anyway, and would have saved a lot of work.

I may have missed it, but why has the junction of the Oaklands line been moved to the down side of the crossing?

Commenting on Nunn Street Benalla a post or two back it was stated that "the round cover is storm water, so the council would be fixing that" is wrong. The cover is a main cable pit/chamber.

Although the works may appearer to be project managed comprehensively, a better assessment would be that the track works have been thoroughly organised thought out. With respect to signalling that has been done independently and it seems that the track people have assumed that all existing signalling is obsolete and can be pushed aside. At Benalla ARTC has directed that the BG signalling is to remain and be returned to service on the gauge converted track.

It is worth remembering that the work is being done by an alliance consortium of ARTC and John Holland. John Holland uses O'Donnell Griffin as its signalling partner. Although this relationship exists from a constructional point of view it does not seem to be related back to ARTC from an operational aspect. Therefore gaps are seen in the process from time to time and Nunn Street fits into this description.

This Sunday they are removing the old BG crossing at Melrose Drive, Wodonga, and preparing the SG crossing to be wide enough for the road to be dual carriageway.

A short section of the old SG will remain after the Wodonga rail bypass is commissioned for access to the MARS factory.

WODONGA Council and railway authorities will close the Melrose Drive railway crossing on Sunday for 10 hours, aiming to deliver a smoother ride to motorists along one of the city’s busiest routes

The work will see the removal of the broad gauge railway line across the width of the crossing, the replacement of sleepers under the standard gauge line and the installation of new roadway pavement.

While Sunday’s work will not yet see the road at the crossing extended to the full dual carriageway width, the council is aiming to complete the $2.7 million project in June after almost five years.

Melrose Drive has 18,000 vehicle movements daily.

The level crossing at Melrose Drive will remain across the dual carriageway even after the opening of the Wodonga rail bypass, with the standard gauge line serving as a spur line to the manufacturer Mars from the main north-south rail line.

Wodonga Council’s manager of infrastructure delivery Robert Bon said Sunday’s road closure marked the beginning of the final phase of the planned duplication of Melrose Drive between the Hume Freeway and Melbourne Road, a long-held commitment by the council.

...moving the rail signals to cater to the crossing’s extended width and the installation of signals on Melrose Drive where it was crossed by trucks moving between Mars and Visy.

I may have missed it, but why has the junction of the Oaklands line been moved to the down side of the crossing?

That is unknown, note neither ARTC nor SIA gives out much info. A lot of the info such as this is based on my best guess. The idea that the Oakland line points were going between Nunn st and the crossover was based on the track base preparation that gave the very strong impression that the points were going there. Also conversations with some of the workers showed there was to be three tracks on the Nunn st level crossing.
The current assembly point would suggest the points are going right on the end of the platform but of course this will be not known for sure until they are cut in, also one of the workers I recently talked to said the points had been shifted across the crossing, he also suggested that the reason was to do with fast through freight (he actual said "super freighters") ???????

When the loops are abolished, I'm assuming there will be no cripple roads?

Was the North East SG project the only line to include a cripple road at each of of every crossing loop? I can't think of any other lines like it, then again no other lines were built to be point to point traffic, with no intermediate yards or sidings.

A correction from the previous post there are 12 bridges between Creighton and Longwood and 10 of them have had major work done.
Some photos of the bridges between Longwood and Creighton.

Shot of the work going on the nine mile creek bridge (about 2 k's down side from Longwood). This is almost total being rebuilt only the main structure of the peers is being retained. Note the concrete tops on the peers the new universal beams and the form work and re-inforceing for the concrete deck. This could easily take another 3 weeks or more to complete.

[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y03qdr.jpg[/bigimg]


A photo of the bridge at kilometer 140.5, I have put this in as a comparison for the top shot to show what it looked like as this is a 4 span version of it. It looks as though it is being retained as is???????

[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y03qdt.jpg[/bigimg]


Just for old times sake the only other bridge between Longwood and Creighton that looks like being used as is, although they have not as yet put in its ballast retain walls.

[bigimg]http://images.fotopic.net/y03qdq.jpg[/bigimg]