Well, after a few days of silence, we’re pleased to report this wasn’t due to any issues or problems, rather we just keep going and got even more achieved!

It took almost no time to install the second beam and get the bracing bolted in.

Although we did need to pack the adjoining spans to match the new steel beam height, this turned out to be a quite rapid process, with bolting up all the timber following promptly.

Tiny little bits of ballast that had fallen onto the tops of the beams took the longest to correct, and there were a few small bits we just couldn’t get to.

We used the weight of the digger to help encourage those to crush which was quite successful. Our load test train finished that off nicely too.

It’s a little hard to know the true history of all maintenance done on this bridge, however one pile shoulder did seem to be too high, the laser level confirmed this and it was suitably adjusted, reducing the issue and levelling up the deck nicely. We’ve got another that we’ll treat like this in due course, however it’s quiet adequate for now.

This is due to the timbers being very different in sizes compared with the very straight and uniform steel. Neither is better or worse, it’s only an issue when you need to try to marry the two.

The irony of welding a timber bridge wasn’t lost on us… however, these welds are just to hold the angle irons to the steel crossheads, as we had to cut the welds to do the beam replacement. They’re not a structural component. It’s just easier than trying to bore holes in steel in locations where we can’t get the magnetic drill.

The end result is really impressive, and looking from outside the bridge, you can’t even see the steelwork, so it very much looks like a timber bridge still. We’re very happy with this method, and given the relative cost of this to timber, it’ll almost definitely be our go-to from now on. (It’s currently about 1/3 the price. We expect that ratio to increase as timber gets more scarce).

We very impressively load tested the bridge and promptly managed to not get a single photo! A Y class and civil train loaded with concrete sleepers was passed over the new beams several times. Absolutely no movement could be observed. Typically, timber bridges do move a little – they are made of timber – but these steel beams sat perfectly. In reality, it’s obvious they are doing all the heavy lifting, with the outer timber being almost exclusively for looks and rigidity.

We’re very happy with this. It will now enter the more intense inspection phase as we confirm all is well, we don’t anticipate any issues.

Following all of this bridge work – which was promptly finished by morning tea on Thursday, we used our load testing train to discharge concrete sleepers between the Bridge and Donkey Farm Track (no photos of that either! Sorry).

Thursday afternoon and Friday were dedicated to getting all of our equipment into Castlemaine, ready for 2 weeks of intense works adjacent to V/line track.

From Monday, all workdays will be starting at the Castlemaine Depot from 8am, we’re aiming to replace all remaining timber sleepers out to Forest Creek Bridge (approx 130). V/line are replacing the waterproofing over Johnstone Street Bridge, so we’ll not quite be able to replace all timber sleepers in the parallel section during this shutdown.

Well, today was day 1 of installing the recently fabricated bridge beams.

It all went relatively smoothly. However, the weather did prove a bit rough, with tomorrow’s being even worse! However, we don’t have any high-risk fire activities to do, so we’ll still be working.

It’s a little hard to tell, but the steel beam in the foreground is the new beam. The one behind it is just our lifting beam.

The new beams are in a slightly different position to the old ones, being exactly under the rail – typically, they’re quite some distance from the rail, although in this bridge they do vary greatly.

Before we packed up today, we did actually place the outer timber back in. However, no pics of that unfortunately.

The aim is to get the other beam installed tomorrow, and possibly get all the bracing etc… all fastened up, we’ll see how we go, the weather might beat us.

Nominally the old beams were 18″ thick, however these ones certainly weren’t (only around 16″), so we will have some packing to do to get a nice even hump in the bridge where these new beams (460mm thick) will be, nothing we can’t handle but it might look a little odd for a while.

Meeting at Maldon 8am or on site from 8.30am.

Based on the success of our trials with steel crossheads, we’re now taking the leap and finally trialling steel beams.

It’ll all be far more clear once we can show the pictures of us installing them, however in essence, we’ll be trying to keep the look of our timber bridges by only replacing the inner beams in steel and leaving the outers as timber.

This method allows us to install bracing, and as we need to replace 2 rather than just 1, we can cascade the (generally) good excess timber beam to a different location.

Our new band saw has proved invaluable in this task, cutting the various components, giving marvellous angle cuts.

And the portable bandsaw was great for the rough trimming of bits to make things much more manageable.

The magnetic drill with broach made drilling holes a breeze and allowed us to get from a pile of steel to a pair of beams ready to be installed in only 2 days!

The beams were delivered cut to length, saving us a lot of work.

The basic drawing follows the same style in use all over the VR system, modified only to suit current standard material sizes and available materials.

Most of today’s work was preparing the bracing, which we never got a completed pic of, however it’ll look pretty tidy once it’s all done. It’s a big mechano set, having now been disassembled for transport and insertion.

The plan is to get things out to the site on Friday and Monday and really get stuck in on Tuesday and Wednesday, the site being Muckleford Creek Bridge. We’ll still be meeting each day at Maldon 8am as we’ll need lots of tools etc.. 

In other news, Monday saw us replace the last fishplates between Donkey Farm Trk and the Bridge, meaning we’ve now replaced all the 6 hole plates between Maldon and Muckleford.

We’ve even stacked up our excess 6 hole fishplates into some long-term storage stacks. It’s amazing how little space they take up when stacked we’ll. The rail racks, in this case, weren’t intended for this purpose but will do the job well.

It’s been another busy week, with another big week to come next week!

Another pallet of fishplates today, getting us quite close to the bridge now – less than a pallet to go!

Tuesday’s crew also did another pallets worth, so we’re getting very fluent now.

We then moved our focus to Muckleford Creek Bridge, where this victim is this failed timber beam – failed due to end splitting (which is hard to see in the pic). All being well, late next week will see some more action here.

We also knocked over all of the clipping up! We’ve gone extremely well, and now that we’ll quite possibly never install fastclip sleepers again, we’re very quick at it!

Monday’s crew will do another pallet of plates, starting Maldon 8am or near the creek bridge from 8.30am.