Train commuters in the Hunter Valley are being urged to check the timetables next week with the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) starting an extended maintenance shutdown which will affect all services.
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From 6.30am Monday, November 19 until 6.30am Friday, November 23, some train services will not operate, others will be limited to allow construction and maintenance works to go ahead safely.
“At Gowrie Gates, just west of Singleton, in partnership with Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) we’ll be putting in place a new railway bridge,” said ARTC’s Hunter Valley Network Group Executive Jonathan Vandervoort.
“In September we installed the 200 tonne girders and assembled the new bridge in a temporary position next to the current one. 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 that means this shutdown is going to be longer than usual.”
“Over the week we’ll have over 1200 people doing nearly 130 jobs across the network, and this extra time means we are taking the opportunity to do some larger projects. We will replace the rail bridge at Quipolly south of Werris Creek, and conduct repair works on rail bridges at Muswellbrook and East Maitland. Other maintenance works include track reconditioning, re-railing, grinding and ballast cleaning.”
This is the final major shutdown 2018. The next is scheduled for February.
