Past Week

It was an eventful week, beginning with maintenance on the little grabs, replacing the wear plates – the hardest part was getting the old plates off!

Later in the week saw 50 concrete sleepers inserted into Curve 13 – just on the up side of Muckleford. This little section missed out on the 1 in 3 treatment for reasons we now can’t remember, but it has effectively had this now so we can rest fairly assured it’ll hold gauge excellently.

Another bonfire at Muckleford was taken care of ahead of the fire season. The date for this starting hasn’t been announced yet, but there have been whispers it’ll be soon.

Late in the week, work has begun on fixing up an old Derrick Crane. This one isn’t original and came from a stonemason many years ago. However, it was probably ex railways before that.

Maldon had a Derek up until the early 1970s, with this classic shot from Neville Gee (26/11/1969) which was chosen as the Front Cover on the Train Hobby Publications “Country Branch Lines Victoria – Part 7” showing the Maldon Crane in all its glory.

The Crane under repair is probably destined for Muckleford as its a lot smaller than the original Maldon one, however it’ll be a good test for ‘how to’ for when we do do the Maldon one. This project is being funded by a couple of donors and we could always use any extra assistance in this area as things are relatively costly.

We won’t be going for usable, rather an aesthetically pleasing addition to the areas.

Anyhow, this week the focus will be back on sleepers in the Muckleford area, Monday will likely be a little different / more preparation like, as we do have a train running but from Tuesday onwards we’ll be into it! Meeting each day at Maldon from 8am.