Loco Shed Castlemaine

We’ll we’ve had quite a successful week, with an excellent start on the track now having been made in the loco shed.

Tuesday saw a significant amount of work done, with lots of rail cutting and drilling to square odd lengths of rail. The track hae been constructed from the rear of the shed outwards.

Last night’s storm saw us working in a lake today. We did manage to get this largely drained with a little digger and shovel work.

Well before morning tea, we’d completed clipping up what we hadn’t got to Tuesday.

It’s not dead straight yet, but that’s pretty good from a string line, translated into a paint mark on the ground then roughly placed out by the digger.

To go any further we needed to unload the material from the works train, which required a bit of shunting.

Once that was done thought, we continued on out the door.

The last rails for today’s efforts being lifted in, we’ve used 80lb rail here, as we still have a good stock of that in moderate lengths.

We even cheated a little and used the gauger to help clip up the curved section, as it takes a big heave with a bar to curve the rail or an easy pump with the device.

It certainly all seems to be point in the right spots, which is always a bonus.

As we’re now taking a break from Castlemaine to go Bridge repairing, we’ve left a section out just inside the shed doors to help with access, as stepping over the unballasted track is not fun for anyone.

Depending on how our Bridge repair program goes, we might not be back here until Mid march, or depending on when our timbers do finally arrive we might be back here in a few weeks. Either way hopefully by Easter, all three roads in the shed will be usable.

Tomorrow, we’ll be preparing for bridgework, so meeting Maldon from 8am, where we’ll transport to Muckleford the materials we do have on hand to get started next week.