A really bad photo but if you squint hard enough you can just see that we now have rails both sides of Sawmill Rd, closing the gap.
We’ve managed to get all the way from Muckleford to (and including) Sawmill Rd with 94lb, with 80lb from there to near Midland Hwy. It’s a lot of rail and except for the last few hundred metres near Muckleford it’s all dropped out ready to go in (it’s nearby in Muckleford Yard).
We’ve even ended up with a reasonable stock of 80lb in 40m lengths, we’ll have roughly 25 to stockpile for future projects such as Muckleford Creek Bridge, Castlemaine Platform Road and new works at Castlemaine.
Tomorrow is all set to be a good day. We’ll all meet at Maldon at 8am, where we’ll break off into two groups, one doing a detailed track inspection from Maldon to Muckleford, the other heading to the junction to load up the last of the small stuff, drums of anchors, bolts etc etc… We’ll then all meet at Maldon at 1pm for the last official rail train (we’ll put a carriage on of course!).
If you would like to head straight to Maldon Junction, feel free, we’ll be meeting there from 8.30am (ish).
Most of sleepers have now been plucked from the roadbed, only a couple of hundred metres to go.
We’ve moved a mountain of rail, two train loads were moved today, one consisting of short 94lb lengths and all the junction rails – which we’ve stored lineside near Muckleford. Another train has been loaded, almost all the remaining 80lb and the last of the 94lb in reasonable lengths.
Tomorrow we’ll mix things up a bit by beginning our 6 monthly track inspection, starting at Castlemaine and heading out towards Muckleford – meeting Maldon 8am. Hopefully we’ll also get a train load of rail discharged in the afternoon.
Thursday will be a special day as we Invite all our hard working Civil Gang to join in helping to celebrate all the work achieved this year.
We’ll use Thursday morning to hopefully complete the track inspection, tidy up some items that need transporting back to Maldon.
We’ll head back to Maldon at 1pm to run a special rail train out to show off just how impressive all this dropped out rail really looks! If you’ve spent time on the gang this year them we hope you can join us. All welcome from 8am at Maldon (we’ll keep toy busy) and if you can’t make that you’re of course most welcome from 1pm to join the celebration.
Two very full rail trains were run today, each 94lb, essentially clearing the stockpiles of long 94lb at the junction. The end result is that if you stand at the end of the 94lb dropped out you can see the end of the 80lb dropped out! With Sawmill Rd about in the middle.
There’s still about 400m of rail to drop out next week to complete this, then it’ll be onto running rail trains to clear the excess rail stockpiled at the junction, mainly shorter lengths of 94lb.
There’s a lot of rail and we’re glad this part of the project has happened in the blink of an eye in comparison to dragging everything through from Guildford.
The gang made good use of the time today, getting a head start on the next phase of the project, drilling the cut ends of the rail ready for fishplates when it’s time to install the rail.
A lot more sleepers have been lifted also, with only a lot to go!
Next week we’ll have another two (hopefully) rail trains on Monday which should see the discharge complete, then we’ll stockpile the remainder, which won’t be all that much in reality. Meeting at Maldon Junction from 8am on Monday.
The view as it greeted us this morning. Less than two lengths of rail to be sledded and a manageable number to be cut and dragged up to our track.
One of the neighbours came out to mark the occasion, leaving a message on the end of the rail which has been used in a video and placed on Youtube – https://youtu.be/bE81t-MNqpI
Being railway preservationists, we would rather this line still be in active use. However given it has sat idle for almost 20 years, with very minimal use before that and no likely chance of resurrection, we feel very honoured that we’ve been able to save (from scrap) a significant portion of the material to help maintain our line and keep some of the line’s history only a few miles away on our own railway.
A lot of rail cutting, unbolting and jewellery collection was also achieved today, with a good turnout to help us celebrate what ended up being a day of kicking lots of goals.
Once all the loose rail had been towed through, only the final two sets of fishplates stood in the way of the final sledding – they also by coincidence proved to be the hardest two of the whole job! A quick cut with the grinder and the whole job had been separated into rail lengths.
Once the loose rails had been towed over the sled for the final time, it was down to the final length.
The final on track part of the sledding, something we’ll probably never do or see again.
Followed by the last few metres, which needed to be done off the track for fairly obvious reasons. We’re very thankful to the sled’s owner for allowing us to borrow it, we’d still be out there with hammers and spike pullers without it!
Thankfully the big digger is the perfect machine for moving it around, it’s now stacked over by our track ready to be loaded onto a truck and sent home.
The final rail, with only bare sleepers in the distance.
In the theme of posing for pics, Will and John are smiling very gladly to see the final rail ready to be cut. It’s also the last time for the forseeable future that we’ll hire this machine, but we’re glad we did, the hire cost would have easily been far less than the cost of abrasive cutting discs and only took about a third of the time!
No sooner had the final rail been loosened and the, now very well practised gang, swooped in to start collecting what was the final short length of loose jewellery, having collected the last of the loose stuff near Fryers Rd earlier in the day.
The final pile of fastenings being placed into the bucket for stockpiling.
We even managed to locate some nice gravel to fix up the pedestrian crossings now that no more rail will pass over.
And at days end a very tired but extremely happy gang were very proud of their many months long achievements. This pic doesn’t quite do the sheer amount of rail stockpiled in the background justice, but it is significant!
Today was a landmark day on the project for a number of reasons
The final sledding and rail lifting was completed
All the recovered rail has been unbolted and stacked in logical piles awaiting loading
All jewellery from Guildford to the Junction has been collected, all by hand into a bucket, and stockpiled strategically for loading into trucks.
All the rail has been cut into their final lengths
The project is by no means complete, but… it’s now a very different beast. We’ve still got a mountain of rail to move, hopefully we’ll get most of it out tomorrow and Monday. Just under half of the sleepers still need to be lifted and the roadbed roughly levelled, we’ve got a few gates to put back up and a fair amount of general tidy up to do, but the end is in sight, still a few weeks work but mainly machine work now.
Thank you to everyone who has helped us out along the way!
Tomorrow, we’ll try and get at least two trains worth of rail dropped out while the gang makes a start on working along the dropped out rail drilling holes where required (where we’ve cut). Meeting Maldon Junction from 8am.
VGR Civil Blog 