Maldon

We started out by replacing two failed sleepers out by the Maldon home signal with concretes, a nice easy job while we waited to see what the weather did.

Thankfully it seemed to turn into a nice day, so we set about jacking and packing 1 road at Maldon, to get the height of the platform track back up something more like the other platforms.

It was a considerable lift, the track was lowered many years ago to reduce the step out of the doors, however it’s settled to such a point that some doors won’t open and the diggers could no longer slew to undertake works on 1 road without risk of hitting the coping.

The amount of lift undertaken called for a ballast drop and luckily the ballast train was ready for deployment.

Following a drop and a final tamp, it came up a treat! It’ll likely settle quite a bit over the coming wet months given how much lift we’ve given it, but we can return later in the year to touch it up if needed.

We brought it back to where it should be, which makes it now level with 2 road, so there’s no longer a big height different their either. This brings Maldon back in line with Muckleford and Castlemaine platforms, meaning uniformity across the railway.

No sooner was all that done, than the digger was loaded onto a truck and sent off to Ballarat Tramways, where it’ll spend a few days doing some work for them.

Next Tuesday the gang will meet at Maldon at 8am, heading out to break up some 60lb rail into their lengths.