Sixty road trains a week delivering material, 500 tonnes of aggregate daily, 120 tonnes of cement daily, 50 tonnes of steel daily and 250,000 litres of water used daily - it is one hungry beast - and still the sleeper factory cannot keep up to ADrail.

But the manager of Austrak, the sleeper maker, in Tennant Creek, Shane Beitzel, said that's okay as it ensures his 75 strong work force (90 counting those indirectly employed such as truck drivers and loader drivers and quarry workers and mechanics) is kept employed.

Fourteen of the factory's staff are ex-ringers.

"ADrail lays its track faster than we can make our sleepers," Mr Beitzel said.

"They stop laying tracks one week out of every six so we can catch up."

Twenty five hundred sleepers are produced in every 24-hour period at the plant.

Each sleeper weighs 280kg and, once out on the line, is placed every 700 millimetres - an enormous task when you consider the track being laid from Alice Springs to Darwin is 1420km.

It is excepted that by the time the track is laid, two million sleepers will have been produced from the Tennant Creek and Katherine Austrak plants.

"Our plant here in Tennant Creek will produce 1.1 million sleepers and Katherine will make 900,000," Mr Beitzel said.

"And our best production record ever, from both plants, has been one sleeper produced every 17 seconds."

Yesterday, both factories had made a total of one million sleepers, with the Tennant Creek plant making 515,000.

The actual process of making the sleepers is quite simple according to Mr Beitzel, but the equipment and investment needed is enormous. it cost $15 million to set-up both plants.

The sleepers are made by casting them from "beds".

There are eight beds at the Tennant Creek plant and six at Katherine.

Each bed is 180 metres long and 1.5 metres wide.

And that 250,000 litres of water that is used is the most important "tool" of all as it is turned into steam and used to "cure" the sleepers in just 15 hours.

"If we did not have the steam generators to cure the sleepers, it would take four days for them to cure naturally and that would just be a totally impractical situation," Mr Beitzel said.

Another important role the management of the factory sees itself being deeply involved in is the training of its staff.

At present there are 21 employees training for their Certificates 2 and 3 in Manufacturing and Mineral Products.

"Currently we have 10 people on Certificate 2 and 11 people on Certificate 3," Mr beitzel said.

And for one final mind-boggling fact - each sleeper has 18 wires "shot" through it which is used to further strengthen it, similar to wire being used in most concrete applications to give added strength.

Each of the 18 pieces of wire used in each sleeper is 2.4 metres long and 5 millimetres in diameter, and according to Mr Beitzel, who said he had done his sums, the total amount of wire used, once all two million sleepers have finally been made, would circle the Earth eight times.

Armed with that sort of knowledge people will be falling over themselves to try a get a ride on the first train once the track from Alice Springs to Darwin is finished - too bad the first trains will only be carrying freight.

But once people are able to use the line it will surely be one of the great train journeys of the world.

Article written by Paul Milton Butler and published in the Tennant and District Times - 8 November 2002

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