Besides tidying up the last of the broken sleepers, checking and lubricating the turnouts, we tackled a few other odd jobs at Muckleford today.
The main being the installation of a small retaining wall, at the down end 2 road turnout.
We managed to make good use of the cordless band saw, to trim some old 60lb rail to the correct lengths needed – just magic these tools.
We then rammed home a few uprights before placing 6 rails to help gain us the height we needed to reach flush with the turnout timbers, backfilled with some dirty ballast that’ll still drain.
We’re extremely proud of how our little wall turned out. We had intended using an old point timber as edging, but in reality that’s just making one more job for future us to worry about, we’re quite happy with just doing the job once we’ve decided.
It’ll make accessing the point levers a million times easier and safer, only just all the bridge abutments and 4 or so more turnouts to be completed in a similar fashion to this now!
We more or less decided to make today the final Friday gang for this year, Will will still be around should anyone get kicked out of home during the preparations for Christmas, however it’ll likely consist of exciting jobs like cleaning out the back seat of the gang truck, doing a detailed track patrol and tidying up the paperwork.
Tuesday and Thursday next week will still be running as normal, check back Monday night for details of Tuesday.
VGR Civil Blog 
You fellas are the unsung heroes , we all see the loco and train crews but nothing runs if the track is not up to standard , for a tourist railway your track seems in better condition than some main lines . Have a great Christmas and New year and thank you to all the volunteers who keep the Maldon line opem
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