Unfortunately the next few months will seem very repetitive, however while it’s still fresh and exciting we’ll describe the process in painstaking detail!

Yesterday’s very small crew got the track lifted 6 inches and inserted every fourth sleeper.

Today’s crew clipped all those up, removed all the remaining timber sleepers, using mainly just the digger to push them down (there is now plenty of room below them) and collect all that jewellery up before it got buried.

Then it was onto installing other 1 in 4 (meaning every second sleeper was installed), this is to prevent burying any unfastened sleepers – which immediately slows work to no end.

Followed up by the final pass where everything missing is inserted. No doubt we’ll adjust and refine this process in due course, however for now, this is easily the quickest we’ve ever installed 118 concrete sleepers! Just over 1.5 day’s work.

We’ve found a few tricks to improve things, such as sitting the sleepers up ahead of time for pad installation, otherwise it’s all gone pretty much exactly to plan!

We’ve decided to not worry too much about track alignment during the 1 in 4 install (it can move extremely easily), as it is extremely easy to re-align while only clipped up every fourth, by the time its 1 in 2, it’s a real struggle to move, once they’re all there… it’s only going to be a production tamper aligning it then.

So far, we’ve done nothing but line the track, the top has turned out as it is just by the act of lifting it, which is staggeringly good conpared to beforehand, we really should have taken a before pic. All the major dips have been very significantly improved, almost like smoothing a rough surface.

We’re very happy with how things are progressing and it’ll get about 200 times easier once the weather cools a bit more!

We’ll be out again tomorrow, meeting on site from 8.15am.

Well it’s March and we’re full swing into re-sleepering. Most of today was spent getting all the required bits and pieces out to site, however that went quite smoothly, so around 1130am we started pulling spikes. We’re hoping to make this process a very minimal handling exercise, so we’ve got a big bin to carry as we go collecting old jewellery.

Before long we were into lifting the track to height and inserting sleepers, a total of 30 were inserted today, around 10 clipped up. This is in a 1 in 4 pattern, so tomorrow’s crew will complete the clipping up, while the intermediate sleepers are removed, ready to begin inserting the remainder. This should give us a good head start with the project, this will also be our learning week, working out the best processes and quickest strategies etc…

Tomorrow’s crew will Meet at Maldon at 8am or out on site from 8.15am (about 1.5kms on the Castlemaine side of Bendigo Rd Crossing).

Another very successful day, with many more bolts tightened, particularly those at the escapes, which had become very loose for some reason. It’s slow going, given each pier has in the region of 32 bolts that require checking and generally tightening… it’s a lot of bolts, when you consider there’s about 38 piers! And that’s just this bridge.

There is still a heap to go, however we’re a bit over half way now, so when things on the sleeper front settle down, we’ll return and do another few days of bolts tightening here.

Next week, we’ll have workdays Tuesday through till Friday, with Monday being the preparation day that we lost due to last week’s hot weather. Tuesday’s workday will meet at Maldon at 8am and we’ll get into a solid few months of resleepering!!

We had an extremely successful day today, with most of our list of jobs ticked off by early afternoon.

The main one being the moving of the beams back to where they should be, we bought along all the gear to do a lift of the bridge deck, however when push came to shove, a very gentle push from the digger corrected the beams almost effortlessly! We did however loosen a few bolts first, which probably helped.

A lot of time was then spent aligning the deck and in turn the track.

Before we’d begun aligning the decking.

After alignment! Hopefully the difference is obvious. There is a slight wiggle still a little further on, however we’ll get that one with the re-railing as it’s more of a crippled rail issue.

It was then time to pin the decking in place, which involved fitting 4 of these blocks to each span, from the abutment to just past the roadway.

This was a relatively simple process, whereby 2 screws were installed into 2 adjacent deck pieces, preventing the deck from going sideways, hence hopefully holding it exactly where it should be.

While on site we fitted up new Low Clearance Signs, which should be nice and obvious! But the most noticeable thing is definitely the repainting of the white pile sections in and around the roadway, very obvious now.

The other massive task completed today, as though the bridge work alone wasn’t enough, was a very heavy hand slash of all the level crossings and a massive section around the Winters Flat Bridge, which looks very impressive now.

We’ve even installed a notice, stating what to do if you hit this bridge! It’s simply to call Castlemaine Police so that we can be informed and then deal with it.

Tomorrow’s tasks will focus heavily on bolt tightening, all to the Castlemaine Side of the roadway, the bulk of the other side was completed today while up in the air.

We’ll be meeting at the Bridge from around 8.15am/8.30am.