The lineside grass from Brown St. Pedestrian crossing through to Rowe St. Crossing received a good trim with the flail mower today. With it now looking much more respectable.

In some areas this is the third cut this season, hopefully the recent and forecast rains aren’t going to make that 4 cuts!

There’s still another cut needed around Muckleford and Maldon, which will occur over the next few weeks.

Tomorrow we’re back onto Bridge Works, Winters Flat Bridge. We’re likely to have a few people tomorrow so we may well break into two teams, with one heading into Castlemaine to start work on the new 5 siding turnout. Meeting Maldon 8am or Winters Flat Bridge from 8.30am.

Today saw the only urgent bridge repair attended to, an inner beam on for down end of Winters Flat Bridge.

These abutment beams are a little longer than usual as they slightly cantilever past the last peir, which makes getting the old out and the new in just that bit more fun!

But we managed it. By lifting the outer beam and hence the deck, enough space is left to roll the old beam on it’s side then with some delicate excavator work the beam is skewed and dropped down. Getting replacement in was almost the reverse process, just a bit more tricky given the new beam is a little thicker.

A few bolts still to be installed after a few holes are drilled, that’ll now be Thursday’s job. Tomorrow we’ll make use of the small gang to cut some lineside grass and gets some more flail mowing done, as it’s growing very quickly after the recent downpour!

Today saw the remainder of the pandrol adaptor’s fitted in curve 13.


We even dragged out the hydraulic drill to help speed up the job, quite a bit easier and quicker than the hand drills, but a bit more cumbersome to chance drill bits.


The spiking hammer completes the knocking in job very well.


The adaptor’s are each labelled with either a G or F. G meaning Gauge side of the rail and F meaning Field side of the rail. The only real difference is the depth of the hook, F’s are longer to match the thicker shoulder of the sleeper plate on the Field side.


Once the lokspikes were in, it was out with the old spikes and in the shoulders.


The trolley mounted spike puller made easy work of removing the spikes.


A gentle tap with a sledge settles the adaptor into its new home.

Once we’d completed the works on Curve 13, we made use of the afternoon to attend to turnout maintenance at Muckleford and Maldon.


Particular attention was paid to thoroughly cleaning the chairs and lubricating all the appropriate signalling components, with everything operating much more smoothly after our efforts.


A few other little odd jobs such as correcting this misaligned joint were attended to. It’s nice to be able to tend to all these small jobs that we’ve not had time to for months.

Tomorrow’s weather is looking very wet, so we’ve called off the workday as there is little we can achieve if it rains as predicted! Next week we’re planning bridge work at Winters Flat, however we’ll confirm which days that’ll be tomorrow.

Part of the cyclic track maintenance is the maintenance on turnout operation – the actually lubrication and operation of the blades (switches). Castlemaine is a little unique on our railway, in that all the regularly used turnouts are operated from the signalbox, as such there are a lot of moving pieces that need regular lubrication.

The little orange dots in the distance are the crew working on turnout 56 which has for years been problematic off and on, the main cause was hopefully remedied today.

The lubricant (a spray graphite) is a medium which really only degrades under very heavy weights or high temperatures… Of which our trains are neither. Generally a cleaning of this lubricant (polish with a brush) is all that is needed to ensure good operation.

The shiny section on the foot of the stockrail proved to be the main issue, years of buildup of this spray, probably mixed with some oil and general grime had formed such a ridge for the blade to climb over it was making it almost impossible to move. Simply scraping all that away solved the issue.

It shows how good the graphite is to have remained in place for what could be 20 years or more.

All the while Rolf, in the box, was receiving instructions from the ground crew to move the blades as required to ensure complete cleaning and polishing could occur.

Lunch was grabbed while shade still existed beside the carriage shed.

All the other turnouts received a similar treatment, with all now operation as would be expected following a service.

Even the depths of the signal box and the rodding were inspected closely for any possible issues.

Back at Maldon, Len and Bazz are making excellent progress on the turntable re-decking, with it already being greatly safer.

Tomorrow’s gang will meet at Maldon at 8am to load up and head to Walmer Rd Bridge to continue with the Pandrol Adaptor installation (meeting there from 8.30-8.45am ish). It may be an early finish given the likely warm afternoon.