Bolts and grass

Bolts and grass are in no way connected, but they’ve been the focus of this week.

Following the recent track inspection, we’ve identified all the loose fishplates along the track, with most requiring replacement bolts to correct. So that’s what we did on Friday afternoon and again today, with a good 200 or so bolts installed so far, today’s small gang of 3 is certainly feeling it now!

However we’ve now only got one tangent left to go, about 50 bolts, which will see us with nice joints for the summer.

Mowing of the grass was yesterday’s activity, with a large portion of the mowing now completed (some for the 2nd time this year) around Castlemaine, a bit more around Muckleford and a start up at Maldon.

Unfortunately being an extremely good year for growth on the back of a few reasonable seasons, the grass is impressive to say the least, however it also means there’s an enormous amount to mow, and likely multiple times.

In general Tourist and Heritage Railway sector news, B grade timber sleepers have been released from the Echuca line upgrade and these are being delivered to Muckleford for use by the various groups around the state.

We’re not actually going to use any of these sleepers ourselves, as we’ve enough in stock for several years already, given they’re largely confined to our yards now.

So we’re doing our bit for the sector by offering some land to store them and providing a machine to load trucks with when the times comes to send them off to their new homes.

Thursday and Friday will see us mixing up our usual activities to tackle a good amount of the overgrown areas around Maldon and along the line. Meeting at Maldon from 8am.