It’s beginning to look a lot like the real issue is in the reduction box, where the planetary gears look a little different to usual… at least these parts will hopefully be available, those investigations will begin first up on Monday.

It’s certainly done a nice job of it! The reason for the failure isn’t clear, however the machine is now 20 years old and has done a power of work… probably the main causes. The fact that we could still turn the slew enough to be able to get it straight for disassembly is a bit of a miracle!

While the workshop boys pulled apart the slew motor to give us the bad news, we tackled more of the turnout maintenance, working thoroughly through Muckleford and Castlemaine Yards.

Including tasks such as removing washed in debris from around the signal wire.

We’ve gone thoroughly over every turnout across the railway this week, with everything now running quite nicely.

Stay turned for details of workdays next week, we’ll likely begin pulling apart the little digger also, as we’re going to be sidelined a while with the big one out, we’ll work under the guidance of the workshop staff and begin the fun job of getting to the stuck valve, hopefully by the end of August we’ll be back in action with both machines, however we’ll not be too optimistic.

We’ll also use this down time to prepare thoroughly for the upcoming works, this will include such exciting tasks as stacking many more sleeper plates, but we’ll try break that up a little.

Well, after a long morning of trying to loosen the slew motor… it’s out! And although there is damage to one tooth on the pinion, it’s hardly sufficient to stop it turning.

We suspect the damage is likely due to something floating around in the main ring, so we’ll go searching deeper to find the offender. It does also seem like a bearing might be on the way out somewhere in the slew motor. We’ll get that stripped down and fully checked over while it’s out.

It’ll still be at least another week without it, but with any luck, it’s not be too much longer.

While the digger works progressed, the gang turned to the ever exciting task of turnout cleaning, scraping, blowing and checking operation, nothing too exciting to report back thankfully.

As part of a small side excursion, the gang travelled into Castlemaine for a few hours to assist Brett in pouring a small slab inside the loco shed, onto which the air compressor will be located.

It turns out that for a quantity this small, there isn’t anyone in Castlemaine able to provide a truck load, so mixing by hand was the task of the day. A horrid job but at least it’s done now.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon at 8am or Muckleford Yard from 8.30am, where we’ll continue with turnout cleaning and checking, likely followed by the same activity at Castlemaine.

While we’re still waiting to get an idea on the time before we can get a digger back, here are a few pictures from it in action last Friday.

Changing sleepers and unloading more sleepers at Boundary Trk, ready for the next section that requires renewals (Boundary trk to Rifle Range Bridge).

We managed an impressive 63 sleepers on Friday, which completed that section, a total of 166 for the length between the crossings. We’ve likely still got another 200 to replace from Boundary Trk down to Brown Street.

Short of a bit of tamping and a bit of ballast tidying, we can just about call this short section complete, meaning it’ll soon be time to begin on section towards Rifle Range Bridge, all being well that’ll be next week.

However, as for the next few days, we’ll be focusing on odd jobs around Maldon Yard, we’ve got a few bolts to tighten, a good amount of signalling gear to lubricate and no doubt we’ll keep busy. Meeting at Maldon from 8am

Yep, well the digger is certainly broken, we think we’ve narrowed it down to the slew pinion, unfortunately inspecting it proved to be impossible without removing the slew motor, it’s now loose and tomorrow will involve the removal and inspection.

Despite not having a formal workday, a lot was still achieved, with various odd jobs, including mowing some of the overgrowth, poisoning some weeds, collecting gluts, replacing a trolley wheel and generally assisting with the digger.

At this stage we’re extremely unlikely to have the digger back in action this week, so we’ll still have workdays, but they’ll focus very much on odd jobs around Maldon Yard, meeting there from 8am on Thursday.