On what can only be described as the busiest Friday we’ve had for a long time, we seemed to achieve an enormous amount!

It all began with some tidying up from the day before’s re-railing. Then installing anchors before taking the Y class to Muckleford.

Once there we dragged all the rolling stock out of 3rd to allow access to the rail stacks. All the required slightly shorter lengths were plucked from their stacks and brought down to the preparation area to be drilled or cut as required.

Meanwhile the team were busy cutting the rails that missed out last week when the saw broken down. There’s still a few to go as rain interrupted proceedings.

After lunch was dropping out 216 concrete sleepers near Sawmill Rd, ready for the next section.

A trip back to Muckleford to collect the prepared rails followed, with those rails then dropped out at tangent 20-21. Now allowing the UP leg to be completed.

The late aftenoon was spent loading our Ballast Wagon (first of 3) which has been off the railway for many years. We need these badly for our upcoming ballasting of the whole line. It’s good to finally have the first back on the railway, with the others to follow in the next few weeks.

With the weather defying the early predictions of rain, we are now 16 more 80lb rails closer to the end.

It was all completed in the usual sort of fashion, differing only in that we hadn’t had any time during the week to pre-bolt any of the rails.

We were a little slower off the mark than usual today, only just pulling the final screws and spikes by morning tea.

We’d missed an old weld right on the end of a rail which needed to be cut off. It’s much easier to have all this done before hand, but this one just slipped through the cracks.

It meant we had to use our brand new rail saw (to get us out of trouble while we fix the old one which we somehow broke on Friday – something internal). It took us quite some time accompanyed by lots of advice from all the various supervisors to get it going… But when it did it went very well.

Rolf did the honours. The extra saw will prove extremely useful in our upcoming rail recovery.

Once that saga was over, it was all systems go, with the old rails out and new ones in, in no time.

Here using the digger to adjust the rail gap before bolting up.

Bolting up the last joint, always a nice moment, with the end now firmly in sight.

John was busy making up the rail with drilling locations, important so we miss all the old holes (some sleepers have had quite a few holes over their time)

One of our many (3) smoko breaks, one of the great pleasures of working in the bush is being able to simply sit back and enjoy it, while in good company.

The afternoon was exclusively drilling and spiking.

A job which concluded right on knock off time.

Another excellent effort by the gang, with the end of this whole section of the line now very literally in sight.

We’ll be back here tomorrow morning to tidy up and install anchors, the weather will then dictate the rest.

Starting on Saturday 7th September, the civil branch it going to trial Saturday workdays. These will be the 1st and 3rd Saturday’s of the month.

We’re hoping to reach out to those who can’t make our midweek gangs.

Initially the workdays will start with smaller general maintenance tasks, to gauge interest and test the waters.

The first day will be at Castlemaine, attending to some preparation required for the upcoming works. It’ll also include import tasks such at tending to maintenance on the many turnouts in Castlemaine yard.

If you’re at all interested, please feel free to join, meeting Castlemaine Yard from 8.30am.

BYO lunch, snacks, cuppas etc… Steel Capped footwear essential and please dress appropriately for the weather. Hi-vis orange vest or clothing would be advantageous.

Any questions please contact Trevor Maylor on 0407 048 342 or via ganger@vgr.com.au

A quick tamp this morning to remove a few drips and wiggles from yesterday’s work has finished the job nicely. We do still need to tidy up the ballast still, but that is really more for aesthetics than anything.

The rest of the day was spent preparing the last of the 80lb rail.

We’ve prepared around 40 rails out of the 55 needed to finish tangent 20-21 (which will complete Maldon to Muckleford). Those 40 were the absolute last of the 14m lengths of 80lb rail from Bandiana.

We’ve identify enough shorter rails (ranging from 11.5m to about 12.5m) in the stocks to see the job out, after which we’ll only have stocks of 9m and shorter, which is really no better than the 60lb it’ll be replacing.

All being well we hope to get some of these in next week, but that does depend on lots of stars aligning.