The Australian Rail Track Corporation’s latest package of upgrades for the Southern Highlands rail line are to get underway this weekend, with the track maintenance shutdown taking place from 10pm Friday 2 February through to 2am Monday 5 February.
Part of the Australian Rail Track Corporation’s $40 million re-railing project for the line, the $4 million in works are to take place around Maldon, Tennessee, Mittagong and Bowral, installing approximately 18 kilometres of new track.
“The re-railing will be at six work sites using a number of contractor teams, with up to 300 largely locally employed people engaged in the work,” the ARTC’s general manager of interstate asset management Brian Green said.
Early December works delivered 17km of re-railing improvements, replacing rail that is over 20 years old with new Australian sourced steel rail. The older rail gets, the more likely defects will arise, leading to temporary speed-restrictions and potentially impacting on train service punctuality.
“We are very conscious of the concerns of our customers operating through the Southern Highlands and remain focused on working closely with them to improve train reliability,” Green said.
“Pleasingly, we have seen positive results due to the re-railing and other work ARTC has already delivered between August and December, but there is more to do.”
With the completion of the works this weekend, the ARTC will have upgraded approximately 49 kilometres of track in its whole re-railing project, which is expected to finish up in 2020.
Other track maintenance and improvement works will also be taking place this weekend throughout Southern Highlands railway corridor, with maintenance crews taking advantage of the fewer trains running to deliver the work in a shorter timeframe.
Works will begin with rail unloading will take place on Friday night, before re-railing across the whole of Saturday and track inspections over Sunday evening.
“We apologise for any inconvenience the work causes and thank the community for its patience while this essential maintenance work is delivered,” Green concluded.