Today was helping out the mechanical branch down at Castlemaine. To facilitate some concrete flooring that’s shortly being installed under the oil store, the current oil store needed moving to a temporary location.

A plastic lined bunded area was prepared at the north end of the loco shed.

This will hopefully only be needed for a few months, until the concrete is down and it’ll head up to its new permanent location.

While at the depot, we assisted in changing a set of batteries in the blue Y class.

The Y is having some heavy maintenance work, which is almost complete. However, to test it properly, it’s much easier if the loco will actually start!

Loco batteries are big, heavy things, so needless to say, the digger did a lot of the lifting wherever possible.

We’ve rotated the water column currently being repainted.

Separated and stacked up some scrap steel for disposal.

Did a few running repairs to the flail mower, which was out in action to knock down the really long stuff around Castlemaine.

And enjoyed a few cuppas under the accommodation hut veranda.

On the whole, it was a very successful day.

Next week, we’ll be back into concrete sleepers to Muckleford Creek Bridge, meeting at Maldon on Monday at 8am.

Last week ended up being very successful  will 200 concrete sleepers installed, leaving only about 140 to go to get to the Bridge.

We built on the success of earlier in the week, which all went very smoothly.

We had a minor hose issue on the digger. However, these repairs take only minutes now, so it wasn’t a major impact.

Very little to go until we reach the bridge now.

The usual activities of clipping, jacking and packing, giving a result at least as good as it was before we started.

All tidied up and timber bundled, it was a very neat result for the week.

There will be no workdays on Monday or Tuesday this week (due to the cup), however, business as usual on Wednesday and Thursday.

We’ll we’re back into it and going by today’s effort we haven’t lost our touch.

We only had a gang of 3 today, so we decided we wouldn’t get too ambitious and only aim for 80 sleepers. Well, that proved very easily achieved, so we’ve pulled the spikes to enable the next 80 to be replaced tomorrow/Thursday.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon 8am or out on site near Muckleford Creek from 8.30am.

We spent the later half of last week mowing and cleaning up around Muckleford, ready for Trundles and other activities over the weekend – unfortunately due to the weather a lot of activities were cancelled however the area is now very nicely presented.

Thursday did begin with a full patrol, at which time only this tree was found after the heavy winds, very easily corrected by lifting aside with the digger.

Lots of mowing and whipper snipping around the Yard followed, with a Driver Experience Train passing through.

Another happy customer on these very unique experiences.

This week, we’re actually going to have a go at a bit more resleepering towards the Bridge. However, Monday will be a day of odd jobs at Maldon from 8am.