Today was all about finishing off the bridge inspection at Muckleford Creek and whilst there, some tidying up of the area.

It’s been a few years since we’ve had a good tidy up around the piles. There wasn’t a mass of debris, but it’s better to remove it, and we needed it gone to inspect properly anyhow.

The bridge inspecting is extremely exciting stuff, with lots pointing, hitting and drilling, with a bit of ladder work to get a better look at the bit that you can’t quite see from the ground. By the end, we had a very good system in place to ensure we covered all components systematically.

Morning tea by the fire was a nice treat.

Once the works at the Bridge were in hand, we went into Muckleford and with flames on our mind, set about beginning to burn some of the many burn piles there.

While there we didn’t just burn, we did all a few other jobs, lube the turnouts, pick up buried steelwork that rain had uncovered and tidy up lots of scrappy timber bits just lying around.

The fires all burnt down very nicely, and we consolidated a couple of them as one was pretty dirty and wasn’t really getting hot enough to burn well.

A couple of the issues we identified were some very prominent splits which had very recent grown significantly.

These were drilled and bolted, one of the first proper uses of the new impact drill – being able to bore a 25mm hole through a 500mm diameter pile, one handed while up a ladder is a pretty remarkable improvement over any previous drilling method! It’s a real game changer. Everyone was very impressed, including our new recruit, Nathan, who spent his first day out with us today.

Next week’s plan is to get back into resleepering, there’s still some dropping out to be done early in the week, then we should be right to bash in a good few sleepers. Monday’s crew meeting Maldon 8am or near Donkey Farm Trk from 8.30am.

Bridge Inspections was the flavour of today, with 5 and a bit bridges given an extremely detailed going over.

There isn’t lots of exciting action shots, as most of the day is tapping, drilling or checking the components against the standard, which while critically important doesn’t result in any great number of activity shots.

Things like this slightly lifted ballast beam (kerb) on Walmer Road Bridge are all noted down for action within an appropriate time frame. This is a very simple fix – tighten some bolts – others a little more complex.

We’ve got a few, almost all in the 90 to 100 year age bracket, beams that have now seen their last inspection – in all instances the previous strategic placement and stagger of newer beams next to old ones has mean we’ve got no imminent failures present and these can be replaced in a timely manner.

The iron bridge in Castlemaine had a detailed examination – we will be coming back here in due course to do a more detailed assessment while we fix a few issues – nothing major, more preventative. Some old issues, such as the cracked brickwork, is older than the VGR running trains into Castlemaine, this is checked against previous inspection pics, but there no signs of worsening here.

An interesting aside point here, the brick work is keyed in such a way that this crack has stopped after only a few courses – the thought that went into the design to build that 140 years ago has well and truly paid off.

This beam has two sets of dates, 4th month of 1934 and the 6th month of 2002. The older indicates the original installation, the younger is when it was installed here.

91 years old and still going strong, this one didn’t even ping the watch level (normally a 3 year precursor to it being placed onto the to be replaced list – the first indications of decay). This beam will very likely see its 100th birthday still in use – as have many other pieces of timber in these bridges.

We’ve got the big bridges to go now, Winters Flat and Muckleford Creek, we’re pretty confident of knocking over Winters Flat tomorrow, then Muckleford Creek on Thursday, all going well. We won’t need a gang tomorrow, but a gang on Thursday would be a handy thing, as while we’re at Muckleford Creek, we can tidy up a bit of stuff still outstanding from last year’s works there. Thursday crew will meet at Maldon at 8am, the on site from 8.30am.

Today saw the detailed track inspection continue. Castlemaine Yard got a very thorough going over and revealed the least number of faults we can remember!

This isn’t surprising given the amount of work that has occurred there in recent years.

We’ve got 2 check rails with some loose and very rusty bolts that we need to come back to but otherwise nothing of any great concern.

While we were in Castlemaine we assist the workshops with the moving of some heavy equipment- the diggers made light work of this task.

The big digger made its way through to Maldon this afternoon, collecting bundles of timber sleepers on the way.

Tomorrow’s gang has the exciting task of continuing the track inspection, starting at Castlemaine and heading through to Muckleford.

We will be starting at Castlemaine Depot around 8.30am.

Part one, as today saw us operate the rolling track and undertake a detailed inspection of the track from Maldon to Muckleford.

The day began with all the usual calibration checks of the equipment before  heading off for Muckleford.

We had a gang of 10 people today. About twice what is really needed for this task, but it’s safe to say we’ve had many eyes examine the track in great detail.

We found extremely exciting issues, 3 missing or damaged e clips – all almost certainly from a digger related altercation.

We found no instances of gauge faults requiring urgent action. The only instances were slightly tight gauge, which could all be attributed to sleeper condition – no instances in the concrete sleepers, which was excellent.

We made it to Donkey Farm Track for morning tea and managed to block the roadway in search of sunlight to warm our freezing bodies – it did warm up nicely after that, however.

Muckleford Yard received a thorough check up – a good few timber sleepers are coming on but nothing to get excited about yet.

We spent quite some time measuring and recording platform clearances and height about rail level.

We’ve also measured up any failing timber coping for replacement, we’ll probably be getting onto these fairly soon after completing the concrete sleepers through to Donkey Farm Trk, as they’re starting to show their age.

Little divets and oddities were filled to ensure no trip hazards exist.

The goods shed platform had a similar check up, however in not quite the same detail given the extremely minimal use.

All the same things were repeated at Maldon, with nothing of any concern to report back – which is not surprising. We’ve got a few minor potholes in the platform to fill, but the local hardware inly had damaged bags of cold mix asphalt which had already set… so not much use.

Part of the check includes the Turntable, one leg of the approach track benefited from a little tweak so that was undertaken. Only a few mm, but it improved things a little.

We did very well today and we’ll continue with this activity on Monday and Tuesday.

Monday will be dedicated to Castlemaine Yard checks. Meeting at Castlemaine Yard from 8am.