Another busy day at Castlemaine, with more works on the turnout and turntable approach track.

We began with some housekeeping of items stored perfectly in the wrong spot.

Before long it was out with the remainder of the old track and tidying up of the roadbed.

Instead of using the 2 closure rails to make the curved lead we replaced it with a single length of welded rail, mainly because the 2 separate rails were a bit short, possibly a mix up of rails during one of the many moves they’ve had or we’ve made a slight error in the setout phase, either way everything else fits perfectly, so we’re not too worried.

Once in place the off sets from the straight stock rail were marked up and the curve jacked into the correct position.

We’re very happy with how the curve turned out, it’s always a sign of a nice turnout, when everything looks even and uniform.

While fastening down of both curved legs was happening, sleepers and rails were placed very roughly in position towards the turntable.

Rolf will be on hand tomorrow with the survey gear to make sure we get a good curve from the turnout up to the table.

We’re very happy with the progress so far, hopefully tomorrow will see us connected up to the turntable once again, however the weather may have other ideas.

Meeting Castlemaine Yard from 8am tomorrow.

After a slow start due to a few truck troubles, we did make good progress on the new turnout.

We’ve fastened up the straight legs and v crossing, made a start on the curved lead and developed an action plan to get the turntable accessible by late this week or early next week.

It’s all starting to take shape now, with not a great deal required to get it trafficable.

We’ll be back here on Thursday, meeting on site near the turntable from 8.15am.

Between showers, today saw us practise our turnout building skills.

Before too long we had the straight stock bolted up and a string line run to work from.

We did extremely well today, with both half sets (the bit with the point blades) and almost the full length of the straight leg fastened down. We’ve assembled the straight closures and begun fastening it down, but the rain got the better of us.

In a moment that the rain was showing a bit too much interest, we escaped to the loco shed, laying out the sleepers along the west track ready for dropping in rails in the coming weeks.

Tuesday will see us back here, completing more of the turnout. Meeting Maldon 8am or Castlemaine from 8.30am.

Today saw us return to Muckleford to complete the job started on Monday.

To complement the 1 in 3 concretes, we’ve replaced all single shoulder sleeper plates with double shoulder plates fastened up with Pandrol adaptors.

This should extend the life of the remaining timber for quite a few years.

We even unloaded a loo… hopefully more to come on that next week!!

While we were there with all the gear, we replaced another 4 failed timber sleepers, all under joints, this required the fishplates to be changed also.

After lunch we descended on the 1 / 2 road turnout, where some loose chair bolts and various other small faults were corrected.

One of those faults being a cracked chair under the heel block. A replacement was found and installed. The heel block itself is also cracked, however it’s in constant compression and captive, despite the crack. Given we didn’t readily find a replacement, the old one should suffice until the entire turnout requires renewal.

V/Line and their contractors have now completed welding in the insulated joints, which all look very snazzy and shiny.

This is a massive boost for the ongoing maintenance of the crossing and we’re extremely grateful this was included as part of the project. Hopefully next month will see the fitting of the flashing lights.

Tomorrow, we’ll be getting back to the new turnout at Castlemaine, if all goes to plan we should get a fair bit of it fixed down. Meeting Castlemaine Yard from 8.30am