Ballast Regulator

We had quite an exciting day today, with the arrival of a Ballast Regulator, all the way from our friends at Steamramger in South Australia.

This move has been sitting in the wings for about 3 years, waiting for the stars to align at either end to keep the transport and crane costs to a minimum!

The lift was extremely straight forward and before we knew it, it was down on VGR metals.

It’s not gone for many many years apparently, however after a good check over of all the fluids, the fitting of a battery and the turn of the key, it started like it was last used yesterday! 

Because it started, we’ve moved it into the headshunt to keep it safe and sound for now, we had intended running it off the turntable, however the clearance against the platform is too tight without turning it first so we’ll worry about all that down the track, for now it’s out of the way.

We didn’t try every single bell and whistle on it, however it would appear that everything does work and it even came with spare wheels as these are very close to the end of their service life.

Before we can place this into service we’ll need to go over it with a fine tooth comb, give it a full service, work on setting up our accreditation system to ensure we can safely manage this new device and get some formal instruction and training on its use so we can train up our people going forward.

Given how good the overall condition is, it would be great to give it a coat of paint to tidy it up.

Given we’ve got very little ballast it’s not going to be an everyday item, however the ballast broom will be extremely useful in tidying up the track and when the day comes that we do get ballast, it’ll be a massive bonus!

Tomorrow’s crew will be back onto resleepering, meeting at Maldon 8am or on site from 8.30am.