Everyone was on hand nice and early this morning, obviously eager to see this project completed.

With the ballast train on hand, it was only the clipping up standing in our way.

But that task was completed in good time. Unfortunately these old VR concrete sleepers are a pain to clip up, as the pandrol lug is a different shape, making it a much more awkward task than on newer sleepers. However it’s done now!

Although we had previously lined the bit of track through the roadway, it had pulled itself flat a bit, probably when the gravel was added. So a bit of digging and lining saw the curve tweaked into a very nice line.

It looked very snazzy and seemed a pity to ballast it.

Before we ran a heavy train over it, some ballast was extracted from a wagon to help support the section of track now hanging from the concrete slab, so as not to damage the slab.

A quick tamp of that and the first rail vehicle into the new shed was the little digger, we tucked that up into the far end of the shed while we dropped the rock.

Daylesford’s plough did once again got the honours of being the first rail wagon into the new shed – we’re very thankful we can continue to rack up firsts with good bit of gear. The wagons were pushed in just far enough to allow the ballast to be dropped right up to the concrete.

Unfortunately this ballast had been sitting in the wagons a while and set a bit, so the digger lightened the load by unloading a little more from the side, as extra ballast was going to be needed in this area anyhow.

With a few prods, pokes and strategic whacks the ballast began to flow and we were into it (obviously the plough couldn’t be lowered until we were outside the shed however).

A bit of rock manipulation in preparation for tamping.

We’ve found, especially with a decent drop like this, a pretamp of the sleepers prior to jacking makes the job much easier, it helps lifts small issues, uses up a bit of ballast to make inserting jacks easier and certainly seems to make for a much more solid final tamp.

A good amount of jacking was needed, although not excessivly so, to allow the final tamp to occur.

And it certainly came up looking a million dollars!

As one does, once one’s just completed a section of track, one immediately parks a train on top of it! This is either to hide it, show it off or as was the case here it was getting pretty close to knock off time and that was easiest.

Well after all that excitement, it might be realistic to think we’ve got no work tomorrow, however that’s far from the truth, as besides returning all this rolling stock to Muckleford and giving the Y a decent run (something this one hasn’t had for quite a while), we’ve got part two of the great retaining wall to construct, well cut the posts and stand them in the holes at least.

Meeting at Castlemaine depot tomorrow from 8.15am.

Well Castlemaine Yard was once again a maze of trenches Yesterday, installing the future oil and air lines from the loco shed to the fuel store. This has been the hold up in us completing the track into the workshop.

Thankfully however when we arrive on site this morning, the trenches were filled, enough for the track to go down at least.

It was all just the usual mechano kit of bits, concrete sleepers and the non-mainline worthy bits of 94lb rail we had lying around, stuff that’s come out of concrete, crossings and heavily worn on one side, it all went in, once any rough ends had been docked off.

It has certainly changed the appearance of the area quite considerably. You’ll also be pleased to note that the battery rattle gun did all the work bolting up today, around 10 joints worth, all on one battery! Now we just need a battery rail saw and drill and we’ll have done away with all the horrible heavy gear.

By close of play (on what ended up being a very hot play!), all the rails had been connected, sleepers roughly positioned and jewellery dropped out.

A keen eye might note the rather close spacing of the sidings here. The last two panels which we temporarily dropped on the end are foul, so we’re glad we didn’t do anything more than just drop them there, as we’ll take them up or slew them hard over to the fence to give some extra storage room in the short term, before the fuel storage is installed.

We made use of a driver experience train yesterday to transfer all the appropriate wagons to Castlemaine for these works, it made for a decent sized train. The Y class was to aid in shunting and give it a good run as it hasn’t done much for some time.

The bulk of the job is done now, the heavily lifting part anyhow. Just lots of clipping up to go! So we’ll definitely be here all Thursday and most of Friday, meeting on site from 8.15am.

Today was another day of odd jobs. Primarily running the little digger through to Castlemaine for next week, however we made use of the run to jack and tamp a few more minor geometry faults. We tackled two main areas, one being the UP end of Muckleford Yard through to the crossing, this has been bad forever and a day, but looks and rides a treat now! The other being the up side of Midland Hwy.

Among the other odd jobs was an hour or so of breaking up 60lb rail, and a heap of bolt tightening on Winters Flat Bridge. Really done as a play for the battery rattle gun, it proved so successful, that we just kept going until we were out of charged batteries. This little machine has already revolutionised the way we can deal with bolts. Between the track and bridges, there are a lot of bolts, so the easy lightweight rattle gun quickly results in massive reductions in back breaking work!

Next week should see the remainder of the workshop track completed in Castlemaine. The plan is to meet at Castlemaine from 8.15am on Tuesday, however it is possible the earthworks might not quite be finished in time, so check back Monday night to confirm.

Unfortunately the day started on a somewhat sour note, with the need to fix some damage. At some time yesterday, somebody decided they’d bounce their vehicle across the track at Muckleford Yard (for reasons unknown but likely with the intent to steal something). The only victim ended up being the signal wire, which didn’t take kindly to being caught up in a motor vehicle.

The wire broke quite some distance from the actual entanglement, and given the number of joins in this section of wire, we corrected it by replacing a section of the wire.

We did do it the cheats way, using u bolt cable joiners. Some of crew are very good at doing proper joins in the wire, however none of them were on hand today. These will do the job just as well and when we get a spare few years we can come through and have these done properly.

A keen eye will notice the fencing strainers being used on the wire, this isn’t to actually strain the wire, it’s just to aid in removing the slack and prevent accidental recoil while trying to tighten up the fiddly little u bolt nuts. Usually this job is done when only one set of hands is available, so we’ve learnt to make it as easy as possible.

Anyhow after the signal wire was back together and working correctly, we moved onto the real task. Replacing 3 failed sleepers in curve 18.

We also used the trip through to Maldon to get both of the diggers and attachments back home. It was quite convenient having one to change the sleepers and one to tamp them up.

While out and about with the tamper, we jacked and packed a few holes, it’s only a small job, but does make an enormous difference to the ride quality.

The afternoon was spent tidying up the remaining loose items around Curve 21. Although the curve has been complete for some time, we never quite found the time to complete the tidy up. Anyhow done now.

Tomorrow we’ve got a few more odd jobs to tend to. We’ll be meeting at Maldon from 8am, where depending on numbers we’ll plan our day’s workload.