Sorry it’s been a few days since the last post, however it has been quite productive.

Thursday last week saw a big effort at Winters Flat Bridge, it get it back into shape for the weekend.

This was the main point of impact, thankfully only superficial marks. However, it has knocked a bit off the beams, so their lifespan has reduced as any odd shaped hole or scratch increases the surface area and in turn means more area for decay.

Some detailed inspection with a closed lane showed it was all still okay structurally to let a digger across.

Once the digger has wandered around, it was lined up to push the beams back into their correct location, an action which straightened the bridge very nicely at the same time.

This was followed by lots of bolt tightening.

The J class just happened to be steam for unrelated matters – so a load test was conducted using it – passed with flying colours – no movement was detected – really meaning we’d done a good job of bolt tightening.

The opportunity was taken to observe Pyrenees Hwy Bridge under load, nothing of concern, just to get intimately acquainted with how much things move realtive to each other – nothing of any excitement was observed thankfully.

It turns out steam locos have an inbuilt ladder rack!

We were so successful at the Bridge on Thursday that we made it back to the concrete sleepering and picked up a few dips and wiggles to improve things for the weekend trains.

Monday –

Monday’s crew returned to sleepers, getting another 20 e clip sleepers under and clipped up, as well as dropping out more sleepers.

Today –

Today’s crew continued on, installing a further 20 e clips and all the in-between sleepers.

The day went so well – the power of a desire to stay warm in the Arctic conditions no doubt – that an additional 20 e clips were prepared and spikes pulled.

This means that after tomorrow and Thursday, this week will have seen another 240 sleepers installed, leaving only about that again to reach the crossing!

Tomorrow’s and Thursday’s crews will meet at Maldon at 8am or on site from 8.30am.

We’ve had a busy week so far this week, with 240 concrete sleepers inserted.

We’re now past the whistle post, meaning we’re less than 440 yards or approx 400m to Donkey Farm Track. Shouldn’t be too long now.

It seems very achievable by the end of July now.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is a bit of urgent bridge work at Winters Flat, following a road vehicle collision with the Bridge this morning. The initial inspection has shown that the damage is limited to movement of the beams and decking, as well as some extra damage to the sign.

We’ll be meeting at Maldon at 8am then out at Winters Flat from 8.45/9am – we’ll need a few drivers at Maldon tomorrow so please start there is possible to ensure we can get all the gear out to site.

Today was all about finishing off the bridge inspection at Muckleford Creek and whilst there, some tidying up of the area.

It’s been a few years since we’ve had a good tidy up around the piles. There wasn’t a mass of debris, but it’s better to remove it, and we needed it gone to inspect properly anyhow.

The bridge inspecting is extremely exciting stuff, with lots pointing, hitting and drilling, with a bit of ladder work to get a better look at the bit that you can’t quite see from the ground. By the end, we had a very good system in place to ensure we covered all components systematically.

Morning tea by the fire was a nice treat.

Once the works at the Bridge were in hand, we went into Muckleford and with flames on our mind, set about beginning to burn some of the many burn piles there.

While there we didn’t just burn, we did all a few other jobs, lube the turnouts, pick up buried steelwork that rain had uncovered and tidy up lots of scrappy timber bits just lying around.

The fires all burnt down very nicely, and we consolidated a couple of them as one was pretty dirty and wasn’t really getting hot enough to burn well.

A couple of the issues we identified were some very prominent splits which had very recent grown significantly.

These were drilled and bolted, one of the first proper uses of the new impact drill – being able to bore a 25mm hole through a 500mm diameter pile, one handed while up a ladder is a pretty remarkable improvement over any previous drilling method! It’s a real game changer. Everyone was very impressed, including our new recruit, Nathan, who spent his first day out with us today.

Next week’s plan is to get back into resleepering, there’s still some dropping out to be done early in the week, then we should be right to bash in a good few sleepers. Monday’s crew meeting Maldon 8am or near Donkey Farm Trk from 8.30am.

Bridge Inspections was the flavour of today, with 5 and a bit bridges given an extremely detailed going over.

There isn’t lots of exciting action shots, as most of the day is tapping, drilling or checking the components against the standard, which while critically important doesn’t result in any great number of activity shots.

Things like this slightly lifted ballast beam (kerb) on Walmer Road Bridge are all noted down for action within an appropriate time frame. This is a very simple fix – tighten some bolts – others a little more complex.

We’ve got a few, almost all in the 90 to 100 year age bracket, beams that have now seen their last inspection – in all instances the previous strategic placement and stagger of newer beams next to old ones has mean we’ve got no imminent failures present and these can be replaced in a timely manner.

The iron bridge in Castlemaine had a detailed examination – we will be coming back here in due course to do a more detailed assessment while we fix a few issues – nothing major, more preventative. Some old issues, such as the cracked brickwork, is older than the VGR running trains into Castlemaine, this is checked against previous inspection pics, but there no signs of worsening here.

An interesting aside point here, the brick work is keyed in such a way that this crack has stopped after only a few courses – the thought that went into the design to build that 140 years ago has well and truly paid off.

This beam has two sets of dates, 4th month of 1934 and the 6th month of 2002. The older indicates the original installation, the younger is when it was installed here.

91 years old and still going strong, this one didn’t even ping the watch level (normally a 3 year precursor to it being placed onto the to be replaced list – the first indications of decay). This beam will very likely see its 100th birthday still in use – as have many other pieces of timber in these bridges.

We’ve got the big bridges to go now, Winters Flat and Muckleford Creek, we’re pretty confident of knocking over Winters Flat tomorrow, then Muckleford Creek on Thursday, all going well. We won’t need a gang tomorrow, but a gang on Thursday would be a handy thing, as while we’re at Muckleford Creek, we can tidy up a bit of stuff still outstanding from last year’s works there. Thursday crew will meet at Maldon at 8am, the on site from 8.30am.