Another big day of sleeper dropouts, only 898 sleepers were dropped out today, still lots, but not quite as impressive as yesterday’s 1,337.

The main focus was again in the region of pipeline crossing, this time on the Down Side or as depicted here, being dropped out for use on the Down side of the crossing. There isn’t an enormous number of locations to unload along this section, being either on embankments or in cuttings, so we’ve had to unload heavily at a few select sites.

The equivalent to another train load of sleepers were loaded at Muckleford, and it is starting to show a notable dint in the stockpile there.

We’ve decided to be more effective at this, it’s time to drag the other two flat wagons back in as sleeper carriers, taking the full train up to 6 wagons, and allow around 600 per train rather than the current 450, keeping just inside the load limit for a Y class. The extra wagons, QN ballast types, haven’t seen much use for a few years, so before we press them into heavy service they’ll be given exams at Castlemaine – but it would be rude if they just got a free ride to Castlemaine, hence they were put to work on their delivery to the workshops.

The afternoon saw us mix things up a little, with 264 low profile sleepers taken through to Maclise Street Crossing, for spot replacement between Rowe St and Midland Hwy crossings over the next 2 weeks (while the extra wagons are being prepared for the next sleeper trains).

Next week, we’ll try to get at least 150 inserted between Rowe St and Midland Hwy, provided the weather is reasonably kind we should do fairly well, check back Monday for details of Tuesday, however all being well, meeting by Rowe Street Crossing at 8am.

We managed to set a record today, for the greatest number of sleepers we’ve moved by train in 1 day! A total of 1,337 sleepers have been dropped out trackside, with a further 450 loaded and ready to go in the morning.

First off we unloaded a full train load of fast clip sleepers out by Pipeline Crossing, these will be used in the straight and very large curve nearby.

Then off to Muckleford for a full reload, this time e clip type sleepers, for use in the curves on the Down side of pipeline crossing.

They were dropped out well ahead of lunch, in time to return to Maldon and unload the next semi load of sleepers arriving.

Cross loaded from the truck straight onto the train, nice to not have any double handling.

Once they were loaded, all remaining fastclip sleepers at Maldon were loaded, happening by fluke to perfectly match the number needed to make a full train load!

Another discharge well on the Down side of Pipeline crossing further around the sweeping curve saw the wagons emptied again, ready for the final load of the day at Muckleford.

Tomorrow we’ll be meeting at Maldon at 8am, we do need to fuel up the digger and do a couple of small odd jobs, before we head out to drop out the loaded sleepers. However by the end of tomorrow, we should have another few hundred sleepers dropped out, all helping to work towards getting them into the track.

We set about beginning the replacement of failed sleepers between Midland Hwy and Rowe Street today, we’ve got around 200 to replace, and we made a start by installing the first 15 (as that’s all we had out on the ground)

While there, we corrected a number of small dips from Winters Flat Bridge, through to Maclise St Crossing, none of them major, but easier to correct when only minor.

The humidity did make the day rather uncomfortable, however we pushed through, also managing a big whipper snipping around Midland Hwy crossing.

Thursday and Friday will be dedicated to sleeper trains, as we need to get sleepers out trackside for future works, we’ll be meeting at Maldon at 8am and heading out along the track as required.

On what was essentially meant to be a day of ballasting and Tamping the re-laid section of track outside the loco shed at Castlemaine, we managed to achieve what can only be described as a lot more than that.

We called in the tipper to help distribute the rock, it’s much more efficient than running ballast around by the bucket load, such as we’ve done previously.

We still had a whole range of holes, for various reasons dotted around the loco shed site, so we completed the works required to allow them to be filled.

Which then allowed for the whole area to be tidied up.

Which in turn then allowed us to make use of filled we’d stockpiled for the purpose of making a proper roadway across the track in front of the shed, the trust tipper came in very useful for this task.

We’ve laid geofabric down to give some barrier between the ballast and dirt, however in this setting, what we’ve done, once settled, will probably need a top dressing of good gravel to help it solidify and bind up.

We had Langy on hand with the bobcat to spread the fill, making for a much smoother job than we would ever have achieved with the digger.

Unfortunately we didn’t get a great shot of the finished product, but we’ll try get one tomorrow to show the full extent.

The other major task completed was dropping some rock into a section of erosion behind the loco shed, it was a bit of a two part exercise, requiring our digger to flick it over the fence, while Langy’s little digger went down into the creek bed to firm up the wall.

It’s a bit hard to see through the fence, but it should resist the floods a little better now.

In addition to all of that, quite a bit of tidying up was achieved around the front of the loco shed, especially the ballast profile, a section of poplar regrowth around near Rowe St was given a weedspray, at least to stunt its growth.

On the whole it was a very successful day!

Tomorrow will be a bit of a funny day, the big digger needs to make its way back to Maldon and lots of little awkward digger jobs need tending to, with the added bonus of forecast storm and rain! As such, if you’d really like a day out in the rain, by all means, please feel free to join, however you’ll be very understandably forgiven if you’d rather have the day off. Meeting Maldon at 8am or Castlemaine Depot from 8.30am.