Today saw further progress made on A & B loco roads. Lifting and tamping B road occupied the gang first up and a bit of tweak lining was undertaken on A road, really just to make it look snazzy.

The appearance of the loco shed now looks quite complete, with all three roads largely finished. Just some site tidy up and drainage to go now.

Today’s main task was the fitting of the abutment timber for the approach road that’ll align with the A/B road turnout.

Lots of delicate timber work to splice in an extension to the existing abutment timber was all that was required, however it is a lot easiest said than done!

As part of a rolling stock transfer to store some timber wagons undercover, a couple of loaded ballast wagons were dropped off, these will be needed to complete both A and B roads inside the loco shed.

During one of the many turntable rotations to check the lock block location, this unusual view shows how finished the trackwork into the loco shed now is.

With the location of the block carefully determined and marked out by Will and John, job number 1 tomorrow, will be recessing the timber and fastening the block in.

We’ll be back here from 8.15am tomorrow morning, meeting in Castlemaine Yard.

Another successful few days down at Newport, has seen the job basically completed. Only a couple of small little tidying up type things to go, before we start the convey of trucks and digger off on their way home.

Everything replaced and few other dips all received a tamp and tidy up.

It’ll take a few days and a few rains for everything to settle right back down, but it should look nice and presentable for Steamrails upcoming open weekend – which is certainly worth a visit!

Given it’s inevitable that a bit of dirt gets between the blade and stockrail, all those have been blown clean and tested to ensure everything is working as expected.

We even spent all afternoon tightening bolts, lots and lots of bolts, it’s a job that could go on for years, but we’ve tackled the worst of the worst in the areas that get the most use.

Given that we’re more or less done now, there won’t be a workday tomorrow, as we’ll use tomorrow to get things back home. Check back next week for workday details, however there won’t be anything next Tuesday.

Last week’s crew knocked over the bulk of the bridges, leaving only Rifle Range and Winters Flat Bridge.

Most of the piles at Rifle Range requires drilling, which was a good test for our brand new cordless drill. Which were very impressed with, certainly easy to control and much quieter than a petrol job.

Once drilled the holes are filled and capped to help preserve the piles.

Once at Winters Flat we developed a system of giving a little spray to indicate that it had been completed, as we only had to remove old plugs and renew, rather than drill new holes.

We’re almost exactly half way through Winters Flat, with another day required to knock it over. Thankfully, during all our works so far, we’ve found no evidence of termites at all, indicating the treatment is working.

There won’t be a workday tomorrow, instead we’ll be running trucks and equipment to Newport in readiness for next week. We’ll be working everyday next week at Newport Workshops, starting around 8am.

Well anti-termites really. Today was about installing and renewing the chemical stick termite treatment into Muckleford Creek Bridge.

It’s quite a simple process, whereby a few small holes are drilled into each pile, as many sticks as can be shoved down the hole are and a plastic plug is installed to keep them dry and in place.

The chemical rods, are just a formulated mix of boron and fluoride, which as moisture is absorbed by the pile, causes the rods to slowly dissolve and permeate into the wood, making it very undesirable to termites and fungal growths.

They only need renewing about every 10-15 years. It’s a very cheap insurance policy to keep the bridges in good condition, as termite damage can quickly destroy enough of a bridge to make it unusable.

Tomorrow will be a bit more of the same, as there’s 5 other bridges that are due the same treatment! Meeting at Maldon at 8am.