Another extremely successful day today, with an additional 398m of 80lb rail installed, comfortably.

We did a fair effort first up to in regards to unfastening, however before too long that proved too conservative, as we had reached our end goal before lunch time. So we set to and had one crew unfastening ahead, one changing over and bolting up the rails and one behind clipping up, interestingly we were all keeping pace with each other!

It’s amazing just what a difference it has made to the appearance of the track. A lot of the dips and wiggles have disappeared and after a quick run through with the tamper, it’ll be like new track.

The 398m achieved today saw the UP leg re-railed from the down end of curve 5 (the curve on the Maldon side of Winters Flat Bridge) all the way to Pyrenees Hwy Bridge, where we’ve even cut a temporary Junction back to the 60lb to help us out in getting diggers and trolleys across tomorrow.

You would think all that was enough for one day, but no, we also fastened up 18 timber sleepers at the end of Winters Flat Bridge, straightened two severe cripples in the rail (we’ve discovered that using the Buda it’s really easy to do once in the track while it’s only clipped up 1 in 3) and planned the rest of the week’s work.

We’ll be out in force again tomorrow, as there won’t be any trains, due to the covid situation. So we should make even more excellent progress. Meeting around Pyrenees Hwy Bridge at 8am (ish).

Well on the first day of intensive re-railing, we’ve installed and bolted in 255m of 80lb rail, replacing old 60lb.

We stuffed around a bit, working out what the best processes/methods were but we’re still extremely happy and surprised by our efforts!

So today we remove all the fastening from the 60lb, swapped the rails over and we’ve clipped up the new rail at every concrete sleepers. The big digger proved very good at this task.

We’re yet to come back and fasten up the timber, but as the gauge is now held extremely well and everything is supporting the rail, if this doesn’t happen for a few weeks, it won’t be problem at all.

We’ll also do a thorough sleeper replacement before we do any spiking up, replacing any failed timber with concrete.

Now our process is in place, tomorrow should see at least 300m of rail installed, probably more as today saw lots of stuffing around to get ramps to the old 60lb and cutting closures to join the existing 80lb.

So far this method of re-railing is completely outstripping any previous method, as with just 4 people today, everything was achieved without silly amounts of effort or strain, which should be even easier tomorrow.

Meeting near Winters Flat Bridge from 8.15am or Maldon at 7.30am.

Well, we achieved our goal in a very timely manner today, with the track up to the current compound gates completed, and now in use. It’ll be used as storage for some time until we get around to completing the pit and in turn connecting the track up to the turntable.

Shortly the compound gates will be moved, enabling all these items to be stored under lock and key hopefully reducing the graffiti attacks.

But as we had finished that well before lunch, we came up with a cunning plan to capitalise on the lockdown….

With no trains running for another week (at least), we’ve set about unfastening the old 60lb rail on the Down Side of Winters Flat Bridge, ready to start re-railing with the 80lb that’s been sitting there for over 6 months just begging to be put to use.

We’ve pulled most of the fastenings, removed anchors and planned our works for the next week.

We’ll be running workdays everyday next week. With Monday starting at Maldon at 7.30, then at Castlemaine Yard around 8.15am to load up a bit of gear before getting out to site ( Winters Flat Bridge) around 8.30am to start work. Keep an eye on the blog for details of start times and locations, but it’ll generally be 8.30 around Winters Flat.

Excellent progress made today on the 2nd turntable approach track today, to the point of it being sort of usable.

We quickly set about clipping up everything not got to on Tuesday, which didn’t take very long.

We even bit the bullet and tested a few fastclip style concrete sleepers. These have a side application clip, rather than the parallel style of e clips. We’ve got several hundred of these in stock so it was time to work out how to use them.

We butchered a few 94lb biscuits to prove the concept, and they worked a treat. A special tool to apply and a separate removal tool is used on these clips, as shown off by Norm. They will also clip up with a gentle squeeze from the grabs, which is a nice bonus!

Before any rock was dropped a good bit of lining was undertaken, amazing just how flexible track really is, even fully clipped up it still moves well.

We’d previously manually added ballast to get the track usable, enabling our ballast train to venture out for the drop. Again Daylesford’s plough was the first real rail vehicle to pass onto the new rails!

A good drop, the two full wagons worth, was needed to get the track up to the right height and ensure we can maintain sufficient drainage of what is now a massive, largely undrained site.

Lots of everyone’s favourite, jacking and packing, was most of the day’s task!

But we did get to dropping out the rest of the sleepers and sitting the rails on top ready for tomorrow’s crew to clip up.

While all this was happening, we sent the Y class to Muckleford with the now empty ballast wagons to free up some more space in the yard. You can see from this view we’ve still got some lifting to do, however the area through the gates and near the fire hydrant is complete. This siding will become mainly storage for the next few months, so this standard is far in excess of what’s needed for that.

Tomorrow, despite the lockdown, will be going ahead as planned. We’ll be meeting at Castlemaine around 8.15am. Any questions, please contact John or Will.