More sleepering

More sleeper works around Castlemaine yard yesterday.

We only actually installed about 8 more sleepers, but lots of other odd jobs were tended to.

The high legs (outside leg) of these curves were starting to show signs of working. The timber is still in quite good condition, so we installed sleeper plates under all outside rails to strengthen the curves.

Plates under but drilling and spiking still to be done.

Using the gauger to ensure we achieved correct gauge right through the curve.

Installing the few sleepers we did change. This was using the same method as the previous day.

Spiking up the last of the replaced timber.

That amount of work certainly called for a well earned lunch break.

Rubbish collection was amongst the jobs undertaken. Unfortunately Castlemaine Station area is not always well treated by the public, meaning our tireless volunteers have to step up to mark to keep the railway looking respectable.

The afternoon consisted of cleaning up all the old sleepers. As we already had a loco and train at Castlemaine we thought we’d make use of it to speed up the process.

By lifting the bigger bits onto the wagon using the excavator on the parallel track, the gang raced through the cleanup as only the small bits needed man handling.

A quick scrape with the bucket tidied up the mess made during the process. Looking quite presentable.

We had our prison workers on the task of grass cutting. With the results looking amazing. The railway is extremely lucky to have access to the community prison workforce, otherwise tasks like this detract from the track gang’s regular activities very heavily.

There’s still a little more to go but mowing the grass completely changes the appearance of the place!

As we’d organised a gang for Monday anyhow, we’ll still be running the gang, completing more works in Castlemaine yard. We’ll be meeting Maldon at 8am or Castlemaine from 8.45am.