Today’s rather extreme heat lent itself to a half day. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a very successful half day.

The top rail on the retaining wall has been installed.

It’s simply some of our surplus point rodding turned on an angle to give smooth edges should a hand be placed upon it.

The top rail tidies up the wall very nicely.

A very snazzy addition, completing the wall.

While on the job, the existing uprights over the water course also had the same top rail installed, to keep the theme consistent.

Another great day’s work in very unfavourable weather.

Tomorrow will not be a workday on account of leave and high fire danger. We’ll be back into it on Monday, around 8.30am at Yapeen.

It was a big day of rail towing today, with around 20 rails now up to the next crossing.

The gang kept themselves busy re-installing some temporary rails into this very quiet dirt track as that will be by far the easiest way to continue the dragging and the least disruption for all involved.

Job done and tested with a few cars, very snazzy. We’ve got one more dirt track to do in the same way tomorrow, which will allow us to do an enormous amout more rail towing, and of course recovery.

We’ll be back on site tomorrow, meeting at Goudges Ln around 8.15am – 8.30am.

Another big day of rail moving, with 6 lengths towed up to the next crossing and several more towed to about half way.

The morning saw us effecting some temporary repairs to a few sections of wide gauge. We simply pinched some reasonable sleepers from the already dismantled sections to replace the failed ones.

We even have this mighty heat buckle to contend with! We’ve installed 4 sleepers throughout it to ensure it holds gauge. While the diggers are still happy to negotiate it (which they both do quite well), we don’t think it’s worth the effort to fix.

We’ll be taking Monday off (Public Holiday), back into it on Tuesday and Wednesday though, however Thursday will be back at Castlemaine installing the handrail on the wall and breaking up old 60lb rail (weather permitting). Friday next week will be a day off due to a few people being away.

Tuesday’s crew will leaving Maldon around 8am or meet on site (Yapeen) at 8.30am.

 

 

The first crossing, over which we dragged around 2.9km of rail today.

This is the Yapeen – Vaughan Springs Rd, very near to the Midland Hwy.

With all the rail past this point free and ready to come across the crossing, we enlisted some traffic management and set to it!

The big digger proved it’s worth almost instantly, being the weapon of choice.

(even a little video to show off)

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the rail through the crossings was removed a few years ago. The down side was every rail dragged required getting off and on as the crossing was too wide to just reach over.

We began the day with our fancy rollers to protect the road… Then by accident discovered that a sleeper either side of the roadway was far easier.

All the rail and the sled have been moved across the crossing. There was actually only about 40 lengths of rail, but when they’re 80m long each it soon adds up to a lot of rail.

We also had the little digger dragging rail away from the crossing up the next hill, but the wet weather and lower grunt made it a little less practical.

Tomorrow will be another rail towing day, up towards the next crossing, another 1.5kms ish. It’ll require a bit of track work to ensure gauge will hold. Meeting Maldon at 7.45am or site from 8.15am (Yapeen Crossing).