The 3 siding extension, north of the carriage shed ended up being today’s task. We had planned on doing more pit timbering, however the sharpened saw wasn’t ready until lunch time and we certainly weren’t going to sit around doing nothing until then!

We chose to lift the last 3 lightly built track panels, as it was pretty obvious they weren’t really going to prove that useful given we’re very likely to use this road to store heavy loads of concrete sleepers and rails during the upcoming workshop and loco shed track works.

A rough trench was dug for the new track, down to old sleeper level and the best of the temporary panels were cascaded to the very north end, that will only be for light storage.

All the while, Rolf was busily setting out the exact line of the 2nd turntable track, that we made a very brief start on earlier in the week.

We’ve had two panels of 80lb steel sleepered track laying around for some time, so we bolted them onto the end of 80lb through the shed.

The little digger is right on it’s limit with a panel like this, but it managed, without having to call for backup from the big digger. The rails out the back of the shed weren’t quite square, so that was corrected before we slewed this panel into it’s final home.

Although these panels used the original bolt and plate type of fastening, we needed to install one extra steel sleeper, using the pandrol type fastening, which gave us a chance to use our two brand new pan pullers.  What a treat!

Using the last of our loose steel sleepers, we extended the 80lb another 3 rail lengths. A process which we’re now very fluent in.

Unfortunately around 2pm the rain set in! We’ve completed clipping up the 80lb on steel sleepers and we’ve even roughly junctioned that up to the 60lb timber sleepered panel, but the rain put pay to any further works.

An excellent day’s work however, we’ve managed to largely complete another job to a standard that should require little to no attention for many years.

Tomorrow we’ll be meeting at Castlemaine around 8.15am, where we’ll get back into the pit timbering.

We had a successful day today, with the east side timbers on the pit grouted into place and fixed down. Unfortunately we forgot to get a finished shot, but it looks much like it did last week, only tidier.

In the afternoon, as we didn’t wish to disturb the grout while it was setting, we moved out to begin work on the 2nd track to the turntable. We’ll slowly poke away at this over the coming weeks between other jobs, until we reach the inspection pit.

We’re not far off needing to build the next turnout at Castlemaine, so yesterday, a start has been made by sorting and loading a turnout’s worth of timbers onto a wagon at Maldon, ready for transport down to Castlemaine.

Between showers yesterday, while the sidings were empty, the chance was taken to flail mow the rather tall weeds over in 3 and 4 roads! Greatly improved.

Thursday we’ll be back at Castlemaine, playing with the pit timbers once again. Meeting Maldon 7.30 or Castlemaine from 8am.

Today saw us make a good start on the pit timbers in the loco shed.

It’s a pretty slow job, as each piece of timber needs to be accurately cut, drilled and aligned quite exactly. Which all takes times.

We’ve pretty well got one side ready for grouting and fastening down now. With a good third of the day being a learning curve (as with a lot of jobs, we’ll be experts by the end and then not use the skills again for 20 years!)

The timbers are all almost 4 years old, so they’re quite well seasoned and still fairly straight, however the ends are all unfortunately bowed, more so longitudinally than vertically, so our lap joints will require a little bit of tidy up they’re fixed in their final homes. Once backfilled and with rail installed it’ll all last a hundred years (hopefully!).

Tuesday we’ll be back here, setting this side to it’s final height and grouting underneath (to help fill the voids in the bricks and ensure better load bearing), we’ll then have a finished height to work to on the other side. Meeting Maldon 7.30am or Castlemaine from 8am (no real need to meet at Maldon).

Today’s main focus was the dismantling of this old double compound, which was perfectly in the way for the future access road into the new workshop.

It’s very unlikely this turnout has seen any real attention since the late 70’s and was probably last used properly in the mid 80s.. Needless to say every bolt was a hassle. And in a double compound there are a lot of bolts!

We’ve loaded all the components onto a well wagon, for stacking as a unit out at Muckleford. However it’s a real mess, full of broken rail, decayed foot and web and generally quite worn. It’s also a bit of a rare beast…. It’s a Weighted 75lb turnout, the important sections of the turnout have a thicker web, taking the rail weight up to 86lb. It was a very old idea, that really didn’t work for various reasons, mainly due to the chair design and need for an enormous number of junction fishplates to join the various types of rail.

The old timber remnants still needs collecting up for disposal, but the area does look a little tidier. The well wagons are now quite literally sitting at the end of the track.. Almost like it was planned.

The remaining track will not be lifted, rather it will be slewed towards the fence to align with the shed and once we know the exact location of the new workshop track, we’ll extend it as far as practical to maintain some storage space.

Now that storage for trucks, equipment etc… is no longer needed in the carriage shed (we’ve got other sheds for that now!), 5 siding has been extended another 2 rail lengths to improve the available storage space by about a passenger carriage length.

This afternoon saw us move into the loco shed, to make a start on installing the pit timbers, this will be one of tomorrow’s main tasks.

While we were busily clearing stuff in the way, Rolf was busily surveying the track layout for the workshop track, he’s not quite finished yet, however it’s all looking like it’ll work.

Tomorrow we’ll be meeting at Castlemaine from 8.30am, hopefully the weather is as good as is was today.