A new railway bridge will be installed at Gowrie Gates, west of Singleton, as part of a weeklong Hunter Valley maintenance shutdown scheduled to begin on November 19.
The Australian Rail Track Corporation says it will work with NSW Roads and Maritime Services on the bridge replacement, one of almost 130 jobs scheduled across the network during the shutdown, which will run from 6.30am on Monday, November 19, to 6.30am on Friday, November 23.
“During our September shutdown we installed the 200 tonne girders and assembled the new bridge in a temporary position next to the current one,” ARTC group executive for the Hunter Valley Network Jonathan Vandervoort said on Tuesday.
“Starting Monday morning we will remove the current bridge and then use skids to jack the new bridge into place and prepare it to be operational when the shutdown finishes Friday morning.
“To do this safely our crews need 96 hours and this shutdown is going to be longer than usual.”
The November shutdown is the last scheduled shutdown for 2018.
Over the week the ARTC will have more than 1,200 people working across the network.
Other major works planned include another bridge replacement at Quipolly, just south of Werris Creek, and repairs on rail bridges at Muswellbrook and East Maitland.
“Other maintenance works over the week include track reconditioning, re-railing, grinding and ballast cleaning, the jobs that can’t be done safely when trains are running to a regular timetable on the network,” Vandervoort said.