Mowing, it was just a massive day of limeside slashing with the flail, with the little digger on hand to move all the items that have got in the way of the mowing over the past few years.
The trolley to go behind the excavator received a thorough workout today, with many loads transported away from the lineside around Castlemaine to much more appropriate homes. These drums did a long trip to Muckleford while many other items, such as sleepers, were condensed in single piles rather than multiple smatterings.
The grass mowing is progressing very well, with hopefully only two more days needed to knock it over. Therefore, we will be able to hold a workday on Thursday for anyone interested. It’ll be at Castlemaine Depot, jacking and tamping the loco shed track, meeting there from 8.30am.
Despite previous discussions, Tomorrow won’t be a workday, as we’re into full on grass cutting mode with the diggers, and we’re fast running out of year to cut the grass.
We may have a small workday on Thursday and Friday if anyone is interested, it’ll be at Castlemaine, jacking and tamping the track into the loco shed (should be a fairly easy job with the new hydraulic jacks!) However, if we run into any trouble with the mowing this may be cancelled, so please check back the night before just to be sure.
But if you don’t cut that long story short, this is how it all played out…
Thursday morning began early, with an on-site start time of 7.30, and by 7.45, just about every bolt and screw that could be removed had been.
The second the road was shut, we were into destruction mode, and as usual we don’t take any hostages in this process, it’s much easy and quicker to just rip it apart, as it’s all reached the end of it’s life.
It all happened quite rapidly, however after the initial pull apart, the work drops back to mainly just digging for a few hours.
There was still enough going on to keep us busy however, with conduits needing assembling with draw ropes etc…
However the second we had that road-base down and rolled, we were into building track.
The getting everything in the right spots took a bit less time than we expected, so before long we had that whole section of track clipped up and connected!
We did one major thing differently at this point, where instead of putting in ballast then jacking up and tamping, we jacked up first to the final height and then put ballast between the rails only (so as not to bury the jacks). A light squeeze from the grabs then held it all at the right height, ready for the rest of the ballast and tamp.
So at the end of Thursday, that’s what we had achieved, which is quite a bit more than we usually achieve on day one, the practise has obviously paid off!
Today began with some final lining.
We found time to replace another couple of sleepers, closer to the yard before the ballast truck arrived.
We then spread the rock, did a very thorough tamp and whack, before handing it over to the Asphalters at 10am to do their bit.
Seemed a shame to bury it, as it came up looking very very smart.
While the Asphalters did their thing, we did a few odd jobs, such as reconnecting the signal wire and generally just tidying everything up. A little touch up tamping of the approaches, just little things of that nature.
It was certainly nice to have the time to tidying everything up in day 2 rather than needing to come back for a day 3 later on.
And the finished product! It was a lot of hard work, many hours, but it was an absolute pleasure to see the finished product this afternoon. Thankyou to everyone who has helped along the way.
After a massive day today, we’ve made amazing progress, with the track basically at level and line ready for tamping in the morning.
There will be heaps more photos and explanations to follow over the weekend, but for now, we’re miles ahead of schedule, despite starting over an hour late, issues outside our control unfortunately, we’ve used a few different techniques to achieve a much easier and quicker end product, which for the end of day 1 is pretty amazing.
A few pics of just a small snippet of works are below.
Thanks to everyone who was able to make it today to help us achieve such an amazing result, you have no idea how much we appreciate it!
Tomorrow’s crew, still has plenty of work to do, but thankfully the back is now certainly broken, will meet on site from 7.30am – access is via Chapmans Ln, parking by the goods shed is ideal, or if you come right around to the platform side, anywhere off the roadway will be fine too.
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