Bendigo – a success!

Well a big ceremony was held by the VGR and the BRW teams today when the first locomotive ran successfully over the new track!

T369 did the honours, running back forth several times to help bed in the new track. To our delight there was almost no settling, meaning a re-tamp was not required.

The excavator about to squeeze the last sleepers before the first loco.

A view through the shed towards to concrete slab. We did test run right through the shed to check the integrity of the existing track but haven’t gone onto the new concrete yet. Another week of hardening will not hurt.

The tamped but as yet un-boxed turnout.

The T doing the honours. It was completely uneventful, exactly as it should be!

After the T had passed we decided we would remove a very small dip before boxing up, it’s nice to get a job just right.

The finished job. Doesn’t it look fantastic! Unfortunately it shows up some of the old track nearby, you can notice a big dip in a pic above, that’s actually in the old siding and despite trying to give it a slight lift we decided it was best to leave the old sleepers alone rather than do any damage.

We’ll be back Tuesday to level of the remaining fill and finish off the cleanup, then back the VGR!

An enormous thankyou goes to all of our gang, they have put in a fantastic effort over the past few weeks, really going above and beyond. Our volunteers are the lifeblood of the civil branch and without them we’d be stuffed!