Through bearers on S&C layouts

[JonnyEnglish]

Firstly, hello all, first time poster hoping that I can get some good advice from here.

I moved over to Oz about 6months ago to work on mine railways and we have developed a problem at some of our S&C layouts where through bearers tie in the two straights and the turnout. I had worked on similar layouts in the UK (albeit modular)but the trouble here is that track centres are 5m which means extremely long and heavy lumps of concrete to hold them together. Limited time for track access prevents any form of tandem tamping.

These locations are creating a major headache in terms of speed restrictions for us and we're struggling to find options to improve, one has been mentioned to cut the bearers making them in effect into a long bearer and a normal bearer. Has anyone had any experience of cutting through bearers?

Any advice would be greatly welcomed.

 

[Trog]

Not done it myself but I have heard that you can get problems with the cut ends breaking up due to the stress on the reinforcing.

Would suggest trying it first on a few duff ones to see what happens.

Also remember not to cut more than a couple of bearers in the same space. As cutting a run of bearers / timbers down the 4' of the crossover road for example can lead to embarrassment.

 

[Ploughman]

Not on Concrete but it used to quite common for layouts like this to have alternating through bearers and short timbers.
A few problems occurred with the interlacing and the angle of the crossover leg timbers but nothing too major.