Another very successful day. Even with our much smaller crew today, we managed to comfortably install a further 3 lengths of 80lb (takes us to 22 installed this week) as well as break up some 60lb and tidy up the completed section.
Lunch time saw an end to all the drilling and spiking as well as having the new railed joined up to the old.
All the jewellery was collected and sorted into the appropriate drums ready for reuse / storage / disposal etc…
After a quick tamp through the whole length and lifting out a big dip through one of the muddier sections, this bit of track is looking very smart.
Next Thursday we’ll be back here finishing off what we didn’t get to this week. We’ve only got 12 rails to go so we should comfortably knock it over in a day.
VGR Civil Blog 
I finally got to visit the railway on July 7th, and could see all the old 60lb rail lying to the side on some places, and sleeper replacement. What a fantastic effort the team has done.
The family and I got the train from Castlemain to Maldon and return after lunch.
I’m curious as to whether the section from Castlemain to Muckleford has the 60lb rail. I ask, as the ride on that section was atrocious compared with Muckleford to Maldon. Initially I thought the carriage we were in had a flat spot on the wheels?
Later on when I saw the 60lb on the side, I noticed the length of rails. Some of the 80lb I saw appeared to be in longer lengths. I can only surmise it was the shorter sections and the number of rail joints?
I’m not immediately sure from these blogs whether the rail replacement to 80lb has been the section towards Maldon, but the difference in track ride was amazing.
As such, I’d love to know. If this is the case, in amongst the multitude of other jobs you have to do, hopefully re railing the Castlemain section has some merit?
Cheers, and well done on the continuing efforts.
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Hi David,
You have a keen and sharp eye it would seem.
Everything you’ve said is correct. We are now only around 750m (actually slightly less) short of changing all the 60lb between Maldon and Muckleford to 80lb, this should be completed within the next few months.
This section has been done first as it has an extra 20 years of wear on the rail over the Castlemaine end. It will also see the end of our supply of 80lb rail.
However, we are very close to obtaining enough rail to complete the Castlemaine section (some of the curves have already been done).
We’re hoping that by replacing every third sleeper in that section with concrete, we can greatly speed up the re-railing process.
We are also planning a production tamp in the next year across the whole line, which will see an even bigger improvement and smoothen out the rougher 60lb in the Castlemaine section, to tide us over until all the 80lb is in.
And yes the 80lb lengths are twice as long as each piece of 60lb, and the fishplates for 80lb are easily a million times better than 60lb plates (the cause of the roughness).
Thanks for the compliment, it’s quite rare for people to really notice our hard work!
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