Rerailing

The last major length of 94lb rerailing was tackled today, the final 317m to get to Sawmill Rd Bridge.

The now common sight of 4 rails instead of the usual 2 is starting to become a memory, on this section of the railway at least.

The well rehearsed practice of rerailing has all been for this moment! Well, not quite but it does have that sort of feeling.

Getting a correct length rail to square up the closures did require a quick trip to Muckleford to select a 15m from the stockpile, we also selected a slightly shorter junction rail to match the other leg.

Before long that was all cut to length, bolted together and clipped up.

This Thursday and Friday we will actually be tackling the rerailing across the bridge, so we’re not quite finished our efforts yet, however that’ll be a lot more time consuming and will likely take the two days, once we cut in the closures just before the level crossing.

While out in the area, a couple of loose fishplates in Sawmill Rd were dug out and tightened, this crossing will be rebuilt in early 2023, so it doesn’t have to survive too much longer.

However some of the gang today had a bit of excitement, with a burning car discovered dumped near Donkey Farm Track, the matter was handed over to the CFA and Police, thankfully no damage to anything on the Railway.

Thursday’s gang will meet at Maldon at 7.45am or out near Sawmill Rd crossing at 8.15am, we’ve got a fair amount of preparation work to do on rerailing over the bridge, so it’ll be a bit of a mixed day.