Today was spent tidying up some more anchoring jobs, with the down till towards Sawmill Road (Curve 9) the first location.

We employed the same process as yesterday for installing the anchors. Stopping after this curve was finished due to a lack of shims. So we’ll have to produce some more shims.

With Anchors done the excavator sits awaiting the next turn of duty.

The afternoon was a similar affair, this time installing 80lb anchors on tangent 14-15, which now means our latest re-railing is complete. (forgot to get a pic!)

We also squeezed in some re-railing preparation, removing 60lb anchors and dropping out sleeper plates for the next section, tangent 15-16.

We’ll be out preparing to install concrete sleepers on Tuesday, any extra hands greatly welcome. Meet Maldon 8am or Midland HWY xing 9am.

Today started off with some anchoring, to prevent rail creep. We focused on the steep section on the UP side of Farmers Bridge in the morning, moving over the top of the hill towards Castlemaine in the afternoon.

The process to not overly exciting but starts by using the jaws of the grabs to push away rock from under the rail where the anchor is to go.

The grabs seem to have an endless number of uses.

The section is all 60lb D class rail, for which anchors have never been produced. However by placing a shim on the foot of the rail a 60lb AS class rail anchor does the job perfectly. Here the shim is the reddish piece of material on the rail foot.

The anchor is then positioned onto the shim.

And driven home with a strong hammer blow.

Job done. Were not sure exactly how many we installed today but it would have been well over 200.

The afternoon was a different experience, installing our new speed signs! Here near Bendigo Road. The truth probably is that it doesn’t take 6 people to install a sign, but we all know how to do it for next time now!

Here Will and Norm try to get it straight and vertical, neither of which they actually achieved! But the signs will still do the job.

Down near curve 20 and an action shot of Will on the jack hammer starting the ground spike for the sign.

A gentle tap home with a sledgehammer finishes what the jackhammer won’t.

The post holding the sign is then inserted into the spike and secured by a locking pin. Seen here being driven home.

The odd sign was already in place, needing only the wording changed. Here going from 15mph to 25 mph.

After working through the whole line, the final sign was installed in Castlemaine. This sign also includes instructions for our radio channels. A similar sign (minus the speed) was installed near Rowe Street.

We’ll now await comment from our crews as to the sign positions and make any changes required.

We’ll be back into anchoring tomorrow, finishing off the down hill towards Sawmill Road.

Over the coming weeks we will increasing the speed limits over much of the railway. In reality we’re actually just removing lots of temporary speed restrictions!

All the re-railing works, recent tamping works and re-sleepering have got the track up to a much higher standard. This is a real credit to all the volunteers who have put in all the hard work.

With the upcoming increase in speeds, a few test trains have been run to the new speeds to determine any areas of ‘rough’ track. All the previously known rough spots had been tended to, but faster speeds did highlight a few to attend to.

None of them were major but were still noticeable from a locomotive. The first was a small dip near Bendigo Road Crossing.

After a tamp and boxing up it looked much better.

All the locations tended to today were between here and Muckleford and although a whole lifetime could be spent getting every last little dip out, it is well and truly now fit for rhe purpose.

Here’s a before and after of what we attended to. Near Donkey Farm Track was this bad dip, particularly in the closest rail. John’s digging out room to install jacks.

Not really a perfect after shot as the angle is different but it is noticeably less dipped. These are fairly quick jobs that hopefully now our track is in much better condition we can dedicate a bit more time to.