Thursday (7th April) and Friday (8th April) saw us back at Castlemaine working towards getting track into A and B Roads in the new Loco Shed. The last time we worked here was two weeks ago and our plan was to get both tracks into the shed and useable.

Two weeks ago we joined the rails up for A Road but didn’t finish clipping them to the concrete sleepers. So that was the first task.

Thursday (thanks to Bruce for today’s photos)

Once that was finished, it was time to lay out sleepers over the heritage pit in B Road. This pit will eventually have timber coping around the top and the rails fastened direct to it. The concrete sleepers are a short term expedient.

Back outside, more of the team prepares to join the previously laid turnout to B Road.

In the meantime a new acquisition in the form of rail tractor RT 31 has been delivered and is now patiently awaiting the completion of the track work to find its way into the loco shed.

Back in the loco shed, the sleepers have all been laid out over the pit and preparations are under way to lay rails on them.

With the right hand rail now in place, the rail is adjusted to give the correct gap for the joint.

And finally, the new rail is fish-plated to the existing one and clipped to the sleepers.

Friday

On Friday there was further action. With a team of eight really progresses the job a good way so that there’s only a couple of days work to make the the roads into the shed useable.

The first task was to lift the second rail onto the sleepers over the pit, join it up and clip it down and that was completed ready for use. However there was still a 9m gap outside the shed between the new turnout and the track into the shed. To close it we needed to lay 9m of sleepers and rails and join it all up.

B Road into the shed had previously been laid and connected direct to the turntable, but to connect up C Road meant installing a turnout and now the track had to be re-aligned. The existing track had been buried to provide road access in front of the shed, so shifting it was no small task and way beyond the capability of our little Takeuchi excavator. So in came the ‘big gun’, our 14T Hyundai excavator which had been at Muckleford for last week’s re-railing.

By the end of the day, the track was re-aligned, sleepers laid out in the gap and rails made ready for laying on them.

Next Week

We will be working on Tuesday and Thursday next week – next Friday is Good Friday and we won’t be working that day. If you can spare some time on either Tuesday and/or Thursday please call John Shaw on 0427 352 416 and let him know.

This week we replaced the rails on the ‘Down’ (South) side of the track where we had replaced the ‘Up” rails last week. The process was the same but we were a bit better prepared this week so it seemed to flow a bit better.

Once on site, we unloaded the equipment and got right into it.

The rails were once again fastened to the sleepers using a mixture of screws and spikes on the timber sleepers and clips on the concrete ones.

The new rail is all laid out between the old ones.

The first job in the actual rail changing was to undo the fishplates holding the rails together where the new one was to go in.

The old rails are shifted to one side, any ballast or tree debris is cleared out of the way and then the new rail is lifted into position. The new rails to be laid today, go over Bridge 10 (Farmers Bridge).

Off the bridge, every third sleeper is a concrete one, so the rail is held in place by a metal lug on either side of it. However, on the bridge all the sleepers are timber, so we put a few screws loosely into some of the old holes to stop the rails moving to under the excavator.

Moving the new rails, which weigh about 2.5 tonnes, up to the previously laid ones and leaving the correct gap (to the millimetre) can be quite tricky. On Thursday we tried using a rail grab attached to the arm of the excavator to see if we could do it a bit easier – and it helped a bit.

Close behind the excavator is the team clipping the rails to the concrete sleepers.

By the end of Thursday we had replaced 275m of rail and clipped it up to the concrete sleepers. Friday’s job was to fasten the rails to the timber sleepers, particularly over the bridge, and join the new rail to the old – ready for tomorrows trains.

Friday’s gang was once again quite small (the gang – not the people!) with just four of us there.

We drilled holes in timber sleepers, installed sleeper plates, Pandrol adaptors and clips and drove in spikes until all the rails we laid on Thursday were securely fastened ready for Saturday’s trains.

We also closed the gap between the new rails and the old, and built a bit of a ramp to take account of the 25mm difference in height between the old rails and the new. We now have just 5,267m of track to re-rail to finish the job between Castlemaine and Muckleford. That’s just 10,534m of rail to go!

Next Week – Thursday and Friday – More track to be laid into the loco shed at Castlemaine. Meet at Castlemaine Depot at 8.00am each day. Please ring John on 0427 352 416 to confirm you are coming- or if you would like to join us for the first time!

On Thursday and Friday we replaced about 275m of 60 lb/yd rail in 22’6″ lengths (30kg/m in 6.86m lengths) with 94 lb/yd rail in 180′ lengths (47kg/m in 55m lengths).

Task 1 is to unfasten the existing rails – these being held by a mixture of dog-spikes and dog-screws in timber sleepers and Pandrol e-clips in concrete sleepers.

Rolf had gone ahead removing anchors and e-clips – sorry no photo!

John McC got stuck into using the ‘big digger’, aka Hyundai 140W7, to shift the old rail to one side and move the new rail into place.

The rail ends have to be carefully adjusted to give the right gap to suit the length of the rail and the prevailing temperature. Too much gap and the rail joints might pull apart in winter cold and too little may make the rails buckle in the summer heat. We use a clever ‘pyrometer’ to measure the exact temperature of the rail and then look up a table which tells us how much gap to leave to suit the length of the rail.

Friday’s work was to finish fastening rails to sleepers to allow trains to run on Saturday. There were only four of us in the gang on Friday (8 on Thursday) and it kept us going all day. Our job wasn’t helped when our hydraulic dog-spike driver malfunctioned and we had to revert to driving dog-spikes using sledge hammers. Nostalgia is all very well, but we much prefer the mechanical method over the old and very tiring way of doing things.

Our small gang on Friday was a reflection of the age we live in and the age of our team. One was away with Covid, two were in hospital under repair, (not because of trackwork!), and one was away attending a funeral. We look forward to seeing you all back soon. If anyone would like to come and try track work you would be welcome. No special knowledge or skill is required and as you can see, you don’t have to young or fit!

Sorry there were no photos, but our usual photographer was under repair on Friday.

Next week we will be back at the same place, replacing the rails on the other ‘leg’ of the track.

Next Week – Thursday and Friday – Re-railing over ‘Farmers Bridge’. Meet at Muckleford at 8.00am each day. Please ring John on 0427 352 416 to confirm you are coming- or if you would like to join us for the first time!

On Friday we connected the track from the turntable to A Bay in the Loco Shed – almost ready for locos.

Our first job was to finish off the pointy end of the turnout – we ran out of the right screws yesterday!

Fitting a ‘closure’ rail between two sections of track takes a lot of care and we had four to do.

And to prove its good enough –

Another successful day but with quite a bit to do before we finish it.

Next Week – Thursday and Friday – Re-railing towards Farmers Bridge. Meet at Muckleford at 8.00am each day. Please ring John on 0427 352 416 to confirm you are coming.