MEL Apron Works
 

Word is that the current works between Virgin and the Intl finger are due to the concrete apron reaching some sort of calendar life.

Can anybody confirm if this is correct? Digging up perfectly good apron and replacing it with a new perfectly good apron does not seem like money well spent...

No too sure that would be the case there 'Darty' as there's plenty of concrete of the same vintage that's still in use.

I recall many years in another life that there's quite a water table running beneath Tulla drome & that coupled with oil/fuel that's in the water table meant that the hydrant pipes where needing a serious look at in the not to distant future as well as the whole apron area.
Could get exy in the years to come.

Also when Tulla was designed re the A/C parking bays it was to suit 707's & DC8 sized machines not the Jumbo's of 2day meaning the hydrant spacing as well as the terminal spacing wasn't in alignment, took many years of mods & some hydrant pits being unusable.
Anyway at the rate the Drome works get done there (the current apron/taxi-way works on Alpha a prime Eg, 100 yrs in the making!:ugh:)they would have invented a diff type of flying machine doing away with the joint anyway!:)
The tunnels underneath Tulla are very interesting too:-) Rats as big as some CEO's:E
Ah the good 'ole days where you could wander round the old Wombat machines down on the freight terminal & no one would bother you as the safety officers of the day where off playing cards somewhere:ok:

Wmk2

http://www.beca.com/publications/new..._issue_14.ashx

Page 3.

What's the deal with the railway station underneath, eventually become active one day?

Has anyone got any photos of this "station"?

I'd doubt they would be digging it up if it was perfectly good.

Rumour has it the facility for the station is there underneath the short term carpark and blanked off at either end.

While the Taxi lobby has the state Government by the dangly bits it won't happen. Also now you have half the SASC and the Dark Continent against it.

Possibly a good thing if it doesn't go ahead in some ways.

Would you like your 1st impression of Melbourne to be based on a nighttime trip on the "Broady" line?:ooh:

Back slightly on track as to tarmac/concrete degregation, I would like to know the comparitive PSI comparison for a DC8 60 series or 707 with 6 points of contact to an A380 with 22.

One would consider the new stuff would actually have a lower impact but years of replumbing fuel poinys and possible leaching is something that would need addressing.

Best all

EWL

Fortunately it won't be the Broady line, it will be the Albion-East route. Napthine confirmed in March this year that it would go ahead and that the route had been confirmed.

But he made clear in the May budget that nothing would be spent on it in the next 12 months.

Melbourne Airport rail link route confirmed - Premier of Victoria

Interestingly, it was a Liberal government who wanted to build it in the first place, and it was Labor who teamed up with the Country Party to stop it.

Doesn't concrete continue to cure over its life? Providing it was of the right specifications (slump) to start with there is no reason why it should break down - except for other reasons such as poor foundations, reo problems, cutting into it etc etc.

Concrete does keep curing for a long time, but there are issues with desilicification and 'concrete cancer' with age...a high water table or salinity would make it worse...