One last look at the old crossing.

By 7.30 this morning we were into the destruction phase, removing the last of the sleepers, digging out the road and unbolting the joints.

It was a hive of activity, with everything running like clockwork.

Once we’d removed all the old material, it was onto a bit of future proofing. We’ve installed a 100mm conduit for potential future use, while a relatively easy task, the ground was very rocky so it did slow down the progress a little.

By early afternoon it was roadbase, geofab and drains in, layer of rock spread and sleepers laid out with rails being towed into place. Thankfully we’ve got all the gear for this these days, as it’d be a hell of a job without it!

It wasn’t too long before we were into clip up mode, after the insulated joints at the down end were bolted up.

We spent quite a bit of time lining the curve and the approach, which now resembles something much nicer than we had before.

At close of play, we’d clipped up both legs to the UP side of the roadway. Tomorrow morning we’ll cut in the far end joints and complete the bolting up. Then onto ballasting, lifting and tamping.

We’re pretty much on schedule, however there is still a bit to go tomorrow, so any extra hands would be greatly appreciated. Meeting Maclise St from 7.30am.

Following on from yesterday’s efforts, today saw some additional drainage works, focusing on the up side of the crossing.

The patch of sleepers that needed ballast, had that applied, jacked and tamped to height. Around the same time we discovered the drains through the crossing were block at the ends, so a few feet were removed and they started flowing very impressively, hopefully this allows the crossing to be much dryer for next week’s works.

Once the ballast had been regulated and tamped, it all came up looking pretty snazzy. A keen eye will notice we’ve removed the ballast shoulder on the left hand side, this is to allow caught water under the sleepers to drain. We’ll renew the shoulder with fresh ballast next week once it’s had a good chance to drain.

We also took the opportunity to remove a number of small geometry defects, particularly lifting the Down Side approach to Rowe Street Crossing, we always intended to come back here once the ballast settled, today was the day.

These relatively small jobs make an enormous difference to the overall appearance and ride comfort. As we move to having a more stable track (big rails, good sleepers and ballast) we’ll be able to dedicate more time to these jobs.

Next week’s looking busy, with workdays everyday in readiness for the Crossing Rebuild on Thursday and Friday. Monday we’ll be meeting at Maclise St at 8.30am to disable the lights and remove the track leads.

Following on from the drainage works on Tuesday, we’ve made a start on re-sleepering the approaches to Maclise St.

On the up side of the crossing, 16 concrete sleepers have been installed.

On the Down side 33 were installed, coming quite some distance from crossing to effectively give us a long stretch of 1 in 2 concretes. This section here still had a high number of sleepers from when it was still part of the Maryborough line, so the opportunity was taken to replace the majority of those.

We raced through the standard sleeper insertions, so we spent the afternoon digging out the fouled ballast beside the roadway.

Thankfully once we removed the top layer of fouled material, very clean, firm ballast and road-based was discovered. We’ve taken the opportunity to complete remove the shoulder ballast, which just here was largely sand and silt.

Once dug out, 100% replacement of the sleepers was undertaken. We’re yet to apply the fresh ballast and tamp everything up, but we had to leave something for tomorrow. Next week once we can have the track leads removed, we’ll continue this treatment through the insulated joints to where the 1 in 2 concrete sleepers start.

We’ve still got a bit to do on site tomorrow, meeting at Maclise St. From 8.30am.

Today saw us transfer this strange collection of rolling stock from Castlemaine and Muckleford through to Maldon for longer term storage (and to be used as slightly more secure storage space).

The above pic was taken during one of the many checks to make sure the old 4 wheeled wagons were travelling well (most of which, despite not being used for decades, had perfectly functioning brakes and well lubricated axle boxes). We had a good collection of safety wagons attached to ensure we had adequate braking, but in reality everything went perfectly to plan and it was all over by lunch!

The more exciting aspect was that on the return trip, we got to receive back our trusty Y class loco, having had a few electrical repairs, it’s like a new one again… but even that wasn’t the best bit… we’re once there was 4, now there are 5.

5 ballast wagons, all looking extremely smart and ready for action.

It’s just waiting on having its stencils applied, which should occur this weekend, then it’ll be put to use. Big thanks to the workshops for all the hours repairing, repainting and servicing to get this last wagon back in traffic.

While it might be nice to have more ballast wagons, 5 really is the maximum load we can handle on our steep grades with one Y class, which for most of our planned ballasting will be the case, we may find we need two locos, one at each end to save time running around etc… but we’ll worry about that when it happens.

The afternoon was productivly spent mowing grass at crossings and re-instating some trackside drains at Maclise St crossing. They’d been backed up for many many years going by all the large rocks and bits of conduit we found in the drains. 

We’ve even cleaned out the discharge portion of the drains, so maybe now it might be able to escape the site.

We’ve done a lot of work tidying up the drains just off the roadway, which is largely historical dirt from before the roadway at the hard left was sealed near the intersection. Hopefully this won’t occur again now.

It was amazing how dry the site actually was, given how the water was just pooling there, so hopefully the underlying crossing foundation is actually quite good.

Tomorrow is looking just too wet to realistically manage anything, so the next workday will be Thursday, meeting at Maldon 7.45am or at Maclise St. From 8.15am.