Traralgon Turntable Repairs

The Locomotive Restoration Group (LRG) are responsible for the maintenance of not only the heritage listed Traralgon Loco Depot, but the Turntable and associated track work. It is necessary to maintain these assets to a safe standard under our obligations with Rail Safety National Law (RSNL) as an accredited Rail Infrastructure Maintainer (RIM). As part of this our infrastructure is inspected by an experienced engineer periodically and any corrective actions are noted to maintain the assets.

One of the items identified for attention during a previous inspection were two turntable deck timbers and a sleeper all on the turntable beam itself. This may sound like a straightforward or routine task, but to avoid lifting all the rails and potentially spike killing the remaining serviceable sleepers it was decided to side-insert the replacement sleepers.

Next, the team extracted the old sleepers and began the side insertions of the new timbers using some creative thinking and block and tackle. Obviously it would have been much easier with a large excavator to complete this work, however in order to save on cost a system of supports and the block and tackle were instead used. 

Once the timbers were replaced, they were secured back to the rails with special short stubby spikes, and the handrail supports were then reaffixed to the new sleepers. The volunteer team also used this opportunity to adjust the handrail heights to be much more uniform/straight. The deck was then put back in place and will be welded back together by our team during the week.