Today we set out preparing the remainder of T12-13 for re-railing. We’ve removed any non essential fastenings, dropped out all the jewellery and prepared the rail ends ready for the change over on Thursday.

So far we’ve really only prepared the remainder of the straight, but if we find we’re going great guns on Thursday, we might even do the high leg of Curve 12 also.

Yesterday saw lots more mowing, between Maldon and Bendigo Rd, as well as lots of weedspraying around Maldon Yard to try to slow the regrowth of weeds.

Thursday and Friday will be pretty big days, as we can easily increase or decrease the work to match the gang size. Both days starting Maldon 7.45am or out on site (about 0.5kms on UP side of Muckleford) from 8.15am.

Maldon Yard was getting a little overgrown, so today we corrected that.

A combination of the flail and brush cutters pretty quickly took care of the overgrowth.

Being able to do the bulk of the work with the digger certainly made the brush cutting more manageable.

We’ve basically done everything that needed it and even a bit more, just to make it even easier next year.

Once we’d knocked over Maldon, we set about tidying up under the bridges, with Muckleford Creek, Walmer road and Farmers Bridge all tidied up.

Once the forecast stops predicting rain, we’ll hit some of these spots with some spray to help reduce the growth for the rest of the season, especially in the more difficult to mow areas.

Tomorrow, we’ve only got Winters Flat Bridge and the level crossings around Castlemaine to go and we’ll have a very tidy looking Railway.

Meeting at Winters Flat Bridge from 8.15am.

Bolts and grass are in no way connected, but they’ve been the focus of this week.

Following the recent track inspection, we’ve identified all the loose fishplates along the track, with most requiring replacement bolts to correct. So that’s what we did on Friday afternoon and again today, with a good 200 or so bolts installed so far, today’s small gang of 3 is certainly feeling it now!

However we’ve now only got one tangent left to go, about 50 bolts, which will see us with nice joints for the summer.

Mowing of the grass was yesterday’s activity, with a large portion of the mowing now completed (some for the 2nd time this year) around Castlemaine, a bit more around Muckleford and a start up at Maldon.

Unfortunately being an extremely good year for growth on the back of a few reasonable seasons, the grass is impressive to say the least, however it also means there’s an enormous amount to mow, and likely multiple times.

In general Tourist and Heritage Railway sector news, B grade timber sleepers have been released from the Echuca line upgrade and these are being delivered to Muckleford for use by the various groups around the state.

We’re not actually going to use any of these sleepers ourselves, as we’ve enough in stock for several years already, given they’re largely confined to our yards now.

So we’re doing our bit for the sector by offering some land to store them and providing a machine to load trucks with when the times comes to send them off to their new homes.

Thursday and Friday will see us mixing up our usual activities to tackle a good amount of the overgrown areas around Maldon and along the line. Meeting at Maldon from 8am.

It’s that time of year again, walking the track and running the rolling track gauge over the full length to check for any deterioration.

We’ve still got a few kms to go, but generally we’re extremely happy with the results, with nothing found that exceeds any of the tolerances or poses any risk to safety. All that work is paying off!

We did find a couple of very freshly broken bolts, they were old non high tensile bolts and both did appear to have historical defects. We’re gradually upgrading all these old bolts to new ones as money allows. It was an easy fix, once we’d opened up the nearby gaps which had obviously stayed nicely closed after the bolts let go yesterday. That’s also why there’s four bolts per joint, as for a dangerous situation to arise, all 4 must break.

That was it really, nothing else has been found of any consequence. Fingers crossed when we complete it tomorrow we don’t find anything. The data collected will be used to help us prioritise the work over the next 12 months, but we only found a few areas that will need much attention, which is good as we’ve still got lots of re-railing and Castlemaine work to complete over the next year.

Earlier this week we said goodbye to the ballast hoppers, as SSR called in and collected them. It was all rather uneventful, as it should be.

Our new track at Castlemaine is now part of the roadway once again, with the remainder of that trackwork to occur later in the year.

Tomorrow will see us complete the track inspection, weather permitting. We’ve only got a few kms to go, so hopefully between showers we’ll find the time to knock it over. Meeting Muckleford station from 8.15am.