Despite this afternoon’s heat, the morning did give our crew a good chance to clean up under Winters Flat Bridge, fix a few small issues around Midland Hwy and put up a sign!

The cleanup work was undertaken by Middleton Prison workers, the assistance we receive from Middleton Prison’s community gangs are often a large bulk of our work force, and we couldn’t do it without them.

One before and a few afters from the clean up:

We installed a low clearance sign for Northbound traffic on Langslow Street.

While the remainder of the day saw the gang renewing track bonds around Midland Hwy Crossing.

Our highly technical wire bond hole boring machine picture below:

Even during a heatwave the gang still gets stuck into it.

Today saw us move and replace some Timbers under the 2/3 Rd turnout at Maldon. The curve lead was starting to work, so before it headed outside a safe gauge we’ve secured it!

Best of all… we got to try out our new hydraulic gauger! It’s a Bazz creation, and although only it’s first day in trial we’ve all decided it’s the best thing since sliced bread. You can see by the look on the faces, they’re all pretty proud of this device – Bazz (blue overalls – centre) particularly so.

Of course no job is complete without a quick tamp. We also lifted a few other dips out while we were at it.

Around the ‘top of the grade’, the highest point on our line, are a couple of steel sleepers. These had been sitting under the track unfastened since the re-railing several years ago.

So we decided to test out the same brackets that we used in the Carriage Shed to retrofit (retro-fasten??) steel sleepers in 80lb track – success was the result.

We have used the old bolt and bracket style previously during re-railing with steel sleepers, but that wasn’t easily available here.

As mentioned yesterday, today was finishing off the mowing on the embankments.

Amazing how smart the embankments look with a mow!

The main areas of focus today were around Pyrenees Hwy and Winters Flat Bridges.

Apart from collecting every piece of hidden fencing wire! The flail mower again proved its worth.