Since the last blog post, a bit has happened.

Little odd jobs in aid of finishing the locoshed at Castlemaine have been occurring. There will be much more to follow on this in due course.

Castlemaine Yard received its detailed track inspection, with nothing of any real note discovered, which is very nice.

The second proper pass of the flail mowing is now complete Castlemaine to Maldon – it’ll need a further tidy up in the new year, however it’s looking a treat currently.

We’ve been out and collected some sleepers from near Rowe Street that date back many years, all bundled up and loaded onto a train.

A test train operated for Y133. It’s all good so far, and hopefully, we’ll see even more of it as the summer goes on.

We’ve been using any dead time to trim up fishplates, which is going great guns. It’s hard to believe we ever did it any other way!

There will be no workday tomorrow (Wednesday), however, the end of year breakup event will be leaving Castlemaine Station at 10am on Thursday. Don’t forget to RSVP if you haven’t already.

Workdays going forward until Christmas will be a little different, Monday 15th- normal. Tuesday 16th – No Workday. Wednesday 17th TBC. Thursday 18th TBC. The weeks of Christmas/New Year will be no workdays throughout, with things getting back to normal from Monday 5th Jan.

The biannual track walk continued today, with the section Maldon to Muckleford walked.

A few minor things were found (really very minor in comparison to a few years back) but things worth knowing about all the same. Loose bolts were the main item found, with all of those tightened as we went.

We had all of that comfortably under control by lunch so the afternoon was spent attending to some attending to a Turnout in Maldon Yard (the last genuine original one from 1884) – the reality is after 141 years it has finally worn out. We’ve undertaken a crossbore and re-adjust to keep it safe and firm but we won’t be forgetting about the need to replace, particularly the blades and stockrails, before too much longer.

No Workday tomorrow, we will be working but it’s all digger type work, mowing etc… however Thursday will be a workday, down at Castlemaine, however, meeting at Maldon at 8am first.

We made a good start on our track inspections today, with both Maldon and Muckleford yards having been thoroughly walked, measured and written up.

We had a driver experience train operating today so we worked around that by not going out on the running line.

We spent a very long time going over Maldon Turntable, lubricating every moving part, test every possible position for alignment etc… it passed with flying colours, however we found a slight rumble in its operation as the wing wheel had to contend with a bit of detritus at the abutments, so a thorough shovelling off they got.

It’s now very well overdue a paint but hopefully all being well that won’t be too far away.

Between showers, we spent some time playing with a new tool we recently acquired, a metal bandsaw. We’ve been needing something to cut steel for a while now, generally using the rail saw, but that is not overly practical. A deal and opportunity too good to pass up came out way, so we’ve now got a decent bandsaw.

One of its many jobs will be trimming fishplates. It’ll no doubt be used for allsorts, however. We’re still getting the hang of it. It will comfortably cut a fishplate in under 2 mins – without the noise, sparks and back-breaking labour of the rail saw. That’s 6 fishplates down, only 394 to go!

Tomorrow’s crew is back onto track inspection duties, leaving Maldon 8am.

Lots of odd jobs took place this past week  with some new grab plates for the little digger installed – to replace the original and extremely worn out set.

Unfortunately, they look too nice to use.

Timber sleepers were bundled, strapped and stacked at Maldon, as we had ended up with quite a few half packs that needed combining.

A bit more tidy up, and we even got a rare glimpse of the partly painted F class while we were moving other items in and out of the shed.

Other jobs completed included the Big Digger receiving some maintenance, a full track weedspray was completed on the only day that was suitably dry and still. Lots of little tidy up and odd jobs occurred and that theme will continue this coming week, however due to other obligations, there will be no workday on Monday, however from Tuesday it’ll be back to usual, meeting Maldon from 8am.