This week is a trial on installing lots of concrete sleepers early in the week to speed up the clipping up and overall progress later in the week.

The day started off well, with stunning sunshine and ideal weather.

However a very burst hydraulic hose on the tamping head burst our enthusiasm some what.

But a little under an hour later we were back into, with the lift completed and timber sleepers out.

After a good afternoon’s work of scarifying and inserting concrete sleepers, we managed to insert a record breaking 180 sleepers! Thankfully the blown hose was our only hiccup.

We even found time to run the blower over the sleepers and tamp up one end of each sleeper.

Tomorrow we’ll be out again, to finish tamping up to allow trains to run (at reduced speed on Wednesday) and distribute all the jewellery ready for the gang on Thursday.

We’ll then go on to tighten more loose bolts towards Castlemaine. Meeting Maldon 8am or on site from 8.30am.

Today, despite being very cold and a bit wet, was quite productive.

The rails dropped out last week were bolted into strings, of varying numbers, as we ended up rejecting one quite bent rail and that upset our nice system!

The lubrication at each joint was applied liberally, as the rails were wet, it doesn’t coat very well, hence lots in the hope that enough will end up in the right spots.

The bolting up crew was hot on the heals of the lubricators, with all this done and dusted by morning tea. It was a little quicker than usual with only 20 rails now dropped out.

Fish plates and dog spikes were distributed next, along with the jewellery needed for steel sleepers.

After lunch the task of collecting all the broken up 60lb rail jewellery was undertaken.

All the fish plates have been nicely stacked for easy moving on pallets, with all the old bolts placed (poured from the bucket) into a drum ready to go to scrap.

We then repeated this around the corner at curve 20, where the rail was broken up long ago, but we never quite got around to the jewellery.

This afternoon was spent breaking up the remaining strings of 60lb along curve 20, yet to be stacked, but that’s a good job for just the digger one day.

We’ve only got about 6 km of 60lb left to break up now!

We will be running a gang tomorrow for those who are interested, however the weather forecast is not looking favourable, so we’ll have to wait and see how much we can get done.

Meeting Maldon 8am with work depending on the weather.

By morning tea the 103rd sleeper was clipped up. An excellent effort. The UP leg was clipped up before a run along with the gauger as required to install the biscuit and clip on the down leg.

A pass through with the bucket to move ballast to where it was needed before a tamp left the job looking quite a lot smarter.

After a tamp most of the twists and wiggles pulled themselves out. After a few trains and in connection with the rest of the straight, we’ll give this another tamp to lift out any settling.

While this was going on, the gang moved around to the next straight to collect all the jewellery removed but not collected yesterday.

These activities only took us through to lunch.

So this afternoon, 21 more 80lb rails were dropped out at tangent 20-21.

The whole gang decided a train ride seemed like a nice way to end the week, however it meant our comfy chairs were back at Maldon, luckily a well wagon doubles nicely as a bench.

Another very successful week. Next week will be busy, with Monday being a big load up point timbers day, Tuesday will be a special train to Castlemaine to drop them off in readiness for turnout building. Thursday and Friday will most likely be installing the 80lb rails dropped out today, however until the weather forecast firms up, that is still to be confirmed.

Another successful day, with 103 concrete sleepers inserted into tangent 11-12.

Unfortunately a burst hydraulic hose on the tamper slower down the process this morning, but a new hose by morning tea had us back into action.

As we’re now into the 1 in 40 gradient and it’s always easiest to work downhill, we started from the end of curve 11, working back towards curve 12.

It was all done in the usual process, lifting 50mm, remove the timber, scarify, insert concrete and tamp up.

Due to the setback with the hose, no clipping up occurred today but all the jewellery is out, with one side having it’s biscuit’s positioned and clips started ready for first thing tomorrow.

However all the sleeper changing only required two people, so the rest of the gang soldiered onwards to the next section, tangent 10-11.

All the sleepers with paint had their spikes or screws removed.

Unfortunately the pattern for re-sleepering did coincide badly with the anchoring, so a large number of anchors were moved. We’ll make sure we pick a more appropriate pattern on future works.

Despite the task, the gang managed to complete all 223 sleepers worth of fastening removal and a similar number of anchors were shuffled, all by afternoon tea, an excellent effort.

Tomorrow’s gang will be clipping up and finishing off the 103 concretes installed today. Leaving hopefully some time in the afternoon for other activities.