It’s been a while since we’ve run a works train. Today’s train was transporting turnout components and concrete sleepers to Castlemaine for the upcoming works.

We had quite a train, the unloading of which proved to be a bit fiddly in the narrow space beside the carriage shed, but we managed it and just before the drizzle set in.

Thursday and Friday we’ll be in at Castlemaine, meeting there from 8.30am. The weather will be the decider as to the actual job, but it’ll be somewhere near the turntable either way.

We had a few concrete sleepers to install around Bendigo Road for the upcoming flashing light installation. While we had all the gear in the area, we tackled a bit more of re-sleepering Curve 21.

The plan has changed slightly for how the insulated joints will be installed, so we’ve installed a few more concrete sleepers to help make the process much quicker and easier.

While we were working on the UP side of the crossing we reached a very big milestone! The 4000th concrete sleeper has been installed as part of our Track Upgrade Project.

We set the target of 4000 concrete sleepers and 2000 timber / steel sleepers as part of the funding, we’ve now ticked off the 4000 concretes, with 200 timber / steel left to go to reach the 2000. Those last 200 will look very much like concrete sleepers however, as we’ve now got adequate stocks of concrete and we’d be mad to use timber when concrete is available.

After the insulated joint areas had been completed, it was into installing another 35 concrete sleepers into curve 21. The height we’ve jacked the track to allow the taller concrete sleepers under is quite evident!

They’re pretty big these particular sleepers, but this method proved to work very well. 1 in 3 timber sleepers were left spiked up to help keep the gauge and line of the curve, then the track jacked and old timber swapped for concrete.

With a good tamp and appropriate tamping of the existing track to match the new height, it looks pretty snazzy. We’re quite short on Ballast here now, but once we’ve completed more of the curve we’ll drop out a train load and get it looking very smart.

Next Tuesday we’ll be running a train through to Castlemaine to drop off materials for the next few jobs there. Meeting Maldon 8am.

We had planned to get stuck into more resleepering at Curve 21 today. However last night’s wild weather had other plans for us.

While our railway hasn’t been directly effected, it did prevent our volunteers from reaching us, from trees blocking roads to power outages causing alarms not to go off.

So with only two of us, we inspected our track for any down trees or weather damage, of which we suffered none thankfully.

We did still manage a good start at installing a few more sleepers into curve 21, with 23 inserted under the track and 12 of them clipped up. (there’s was a photo but the wonders of modern technology seem to have hidden it somewhere in the ether…)

So tomorrow’s gang, which will hopefully be bigger than today’s, will see another 40 or so sleepers installed and today’s efforts finished off. We’ll be meeting at Maldon at 8am, or near Bendigo Rd from 8.15am.

Today’s tasks included correcting the only major issue identified between Maldon and Muckleford in last week’s inspection. We had 4 failing sleepers at a joint that were allowing the gauge to widen. But now that we’ve installed 4 concrete sleepers that won’t be an issue!

This wasn’t the end of the works, but it is the end of the pictures, it turns out that a flat mobile phone won’t take pictures.

We then moved to Castlemaine, where an additional 4 concretes were installed in 3 siding, where another cluster of sleepers were allowing very wide gauge. Those two tasks have ticked off the big issues found during the track inspection.

While in Castlemaine, we unbolted the north end of the turntable road and lifted that section of track. We still need to collect up the sleepers, level the roadbed and have the new track location pegged out.

Next week is looking interesting weather wise, so check in Monday night for any details of a Tuesday workday.