Today saw us transfer this strange collection of rolling stock from Castlemaine and Muckleford through to Maldon for longer term storage (and to be used as slightly more secure storage space).
The above pic was taken during one of the many checks to make sure the old 4 wheeled wagons were travelling well (most of which, despite not being used for decades, had perfectly functioning brakes and well lubricated axle boxes). We had a good collection of safety wagons attached to ensure we had adequate braking, but in reality everything went perfectly to plan and it was all over by lunch!
The more exciting aspect was that on the return trip, we got to receive back our trusty Y class loco, having had a few electrical repairs, it’s like a new one again… but even that wasn’t the best bit… we’re once there was 4, now there are 5.
5 ballast wagons, all looking extremely smart and ready for action.
It’s just waiting on having its stencils applied, which should occur this weekend, then it’ll be put to use. Big thanks to the workshops for all the hours repairing, repainting and servicing to get this last wagon back in traffic.
While it might be nice to have more ballast wagons, 5 really is the maximum load we can handle on our steep grades with one Y class, which for most of our planned ballasting will be the case, we may find we need two locos, one at each end to save time running around etc… but we’ll worry about that when it happens.
The afternoon was productivly spent mowing grass at crossings and re-instating some trackside drains at Maclise St crossing. They’d been backed up for many many years going by all the large rocks and bits of conduit we found in the drains.
We’ve even cleaned out the discharge portion of the drains, so maybe now it might be able to escape the site.
We’ve done a lot of work tidying up the drains just off the roadway, which is largely historical dirt from before the roadway at the hard left was sealed near the intersection. Hopefully this won’t occur again now.
It was amazing how dry the site actually was, given how the water was just pooling there, so hopefully the underlying crossing foundation is actually quite good.
Tomorrow is looking just too wet to realistically manage anything, so the next workday will be Thursday, meeting at Maldon 7.45am or at Maclise St. From 8.15am.
VGR Civil Blog 