Is the siding planned for accesss to the main at both ends or is it a lead off the yard ?
Just thinking operationally how will this work ?
Looks like there will only be a connection at the "southern" end of the site. The only sensible way I can see it working is that there will be two roads so that locos can run around the train on site. From what I've seen it looks like this will be the case.
You're making the rather radical assumption that the concept of "sensible" made an appearance in the design contract.
I can't see ARTC allowing trains to regularly set back along the main line over 3 kms across multiple level crossings.
There's only a single level crossing between Benalla and the concrete plant, theres only base preparation for a single set of points onto the main line. On Friday when I went past, as far as I could see the earth works for the loading yard where not well defined enough to tell if there was going to be a loop there.
At the concrete sleeper plant at Bomen in NSW (it appears to back in operation) there is no siding loop in the loading yard, Any train entering the siding there, the loco will have run around in the Bomen loop, go towards Wagga until the rear of the train clears, the level crossing, then back into the siding.
The moves required at Benalla without a loop in the sidng will be little different.
Note: From my conversations with drivers, they do NOT like backing those sort of distances, Although when they were doing the ballast work on the Albury West line, the ballast trains were regularly backing 30 kilometres, In this case though there was a van at each end of the train and a safe worker was in the rear van talking to the driver.
woodford