Following on from our earlier sorting and tidying efforts this week, today saw us get everything away and packed up.

We’ve got heaps of drums of stuff that we may never use but they’re too good to dispose of just yet, so these have been placed in a small wagon, mainly to keep them out of the weather but also to free up space, it’s a bit tight getting the digger in the door but we managed – good luck to the person who tries to get them out however!

We’ve also finished off getting the similar stuff sorted away, rather than being scattered all over the place, this wagon contains point levers, cranks etc.. The repaint on this wagon by the carriage crew is coming along very well!

After much annoyance with the tipper deciding it wasn’t going to start, it in fact turned out not to be the fuel cut-off solenoid, which was the most likely culprit… it had simply taken in a decent slug of air and needed each injector bleeding – not entirely sure why it’s done that but it’ll be interesting to see if it occurs again, which will probably point to a faulty check valve somewhere in the fuel system.

Next week, we’ll certainly be meeting at Maldon again on Monday and Tuesday at 8am, the exact tasks will depend a little on what issues if any we find on the diggers when we go over them in fine detail, but hopefully it’ll be pretty plain sailing.

It was a proper odd job day today, and it will be all week. As part of our maintenance etc…. we do need to establish exactly how many pandrol clips and other consumables are on site for use in the upcoming planned works.

We had quite a number, however they were all nicely distributed between many different drums and with many many different other things. So a sorting table was fashioned, and a lot of drums up ended and sorted through. We’ve still got about 10 drums to go, but we’ve put a good dint in it.

Tomorrow’s gang will continue this and go on with other odd jobs. Meeting at Maldon from 8am.

We’re there! It’s a done deal, the final 38 concretes installed today, taking our total of concretes installed between Pipeline and Donkey Farm Trk to 1,973 – slightly under the roughly calculated 2000 sleepers we’d need (pretty close though!)

Today’s focus was very much about backing up Tuesday’s and Yesterday’s effort, bundling timber sleepers and getting them home.

Most were already in bundles from yesterday, only the last 5 or so needed making up but heaps needed strapping.

We had every intention of running them back trolley load at a time – however we got a much better recovery rate than expected (they’re still pretty average in all fairness however!) – which resulted in having 33 packs to transfer to Maldon.

This many packs called for a little more muscle – the stars just happened to align and a loco was readied for the task.

It did however need to travel to Maldon to collect the wagons, so we tidied up the ballast made the job look tidier in the meantime.

All the steel and timber sleepers on site were loaded up and fair to say once we’d basically filled 3 well wagons – we decided we’re very glad we didn’t try moving these home with the diggers.

Once it was loaded off the slow trip pushing it back to Maldon was made – quite the load.

While the train was away we actually broke out the tamping head – as the grabs just don’t squeeze the rock ballast in hard enough – and down by the crossing is mainly rock ballast.

We’re very happy with how the levels turned out, with no ramp required to achieve the correct height through the crossing. (This pic is actually before the tamping, and it looked even better after).

With us out of the way, the loco made its way home – this loco is currently on loan from Steamrail Victoria – thanks Steamrail – it’s been a very handy machine while our Y class is out of action for heavy maintenance.

It has been a very successful exercise getting down to here – with only about another 1.75kms or 2300 concrete sleepers to get to Muckleford – it seems very achievable now – but probably not all this year. Hopefully we’ll get another few hundred metres completed this year but for the next few weeks we need to get on top of the usual machine maintenance and the like.

Monday crew will meet at Maldon at 8am and sort out what is now a few extremely full and messy truck/train loads.

Due to the need for a digger day, there will be no workday tomorrow. However, Thursday will be an action-packed day, meeting Maldon 8am or by Donkey Farm Trk at 8.30am.