A very successful day today, with the crew getting the crossing relaid, tamped and roadway gravel reinstated.

It does visually look much better now that there isn’t a great dip down to the crossing. 

A considerable effort was placed into getting the crossing section in its final location, as yesterday’s crew will attest, digging out a crossing isn’t something to take on lightly.

A few additional sleepers were installed beyond the crossing, all in aid of the resleepering project, hopefully all being well, an additional 20 or so will be installed tomorrow with Thursday being used a big preparation day for the following week.

A small amount of tidy up is still needed. However, the crossing is looking a treat and after a few rains it’ll be rock solid. It’s hard to tell in the pics, but we didn’t need to disturb the layer of ballast underneath, which we renewed previously – so we’re pretty confident this won’t settle much, if any.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon at 8am or on site from 8.30am.

On what has probably been the most pleasant day of the year so far, the resleepering program for 2025 has commenced.

The task is to pick up where things left off last year, which was Pipeline Crossing.

Although the crossing had been relayed in concrete sleepers some time back, at the time we were unsure what sleepers were coming, so we hedged out bets and put in low profiles. Unfortunately this was the wrong choice as we’re installing full depth almost exclusively between Maldon and Muckleford so it was a case of do we live with the oddity or simply replace the 35 low profiles will fulls and do the job properly – we chose to do the job properly.

So it was dug out, unfastened and the replacements have begun to have been installed. It’s always a bit slow going, and it’s a little slower going as we return to getting the systems in place once again.

Some have even been clipped up. However, tomorrow’s crew will be busy finishing that off.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon at 8am or out on site from 8.30 where hopefully the job will be close to completed, all being well, some additional sleepers may be replaced beyond the crossing also.

It started out as a fantastic day, however it did get very hot and sticky by lunch time.

The day began by bundling up some loose sleepers lying around the Yard.

We spent some time tidying up some junk we had lying around the paddock, we’ve largely used up and tidied up our various stockpiles now. However, it’s important we remember to go back and tidy up these locations to ensure they can we kept clean mown.

We then had a very unusual job, taking E clips from a cardboard box and placing them into a drum for more easy storage. We’re not quite sure why these clips arrived in a box rather than a drum, however it kept us amused for a while.

We spent the afternoon undertaking maintenance of not just the big machines but the little ones too.

Oil changes for the two power packs, filter cleaning and general check-ups. Both have been equipped with spike pullers so we should be all systems go next week.

Our trusty aluminium trolley (which we acquired many years ago off a rubbish pile and fixed up) needed some TLC. This beast gets used and does cop a bit of abuse, so we’re pretty happy to put the effort in when needed to keep it working.

The little digger received its six monthly deep checkover, oil and filter changes and this time a very thorough wash of the radiator – just the fins on the outside, the coolant was recently flushed, however the dust had done a great job of clogging the fins – and we blew it out only a week ago! It’s always amazing how well dust gets into places. Hopefully we’ll get some rain soon and this will lessen as an issue.

Last job for today was to package the yellow truck up with equipment, ready for the off on Monday morning out to Pipeline Crossing.

There won’t be a workday tomorrow. However, we are working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from now on (except on public holidays). Monday crew will meet at Maldon at 8am before heading out to Pipeline around 8.30am.

We’re tracking incredibly well with our fundraising. As of today, we’ve raised $70,590 out of our target of $250,000!

An amazing effort and thank you to everyone who has contributed.

As always, donations can be made securely at: https://www.vgr.com.au/donate

All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

In unrelated matters, we had a successful day today sorting out our rather impressive mess at Maldon – from the recent Castlemaine Works. As per Tuesday’s post, the resident photographer wasn’t on hand so therefore we forgot to take any interesting pictures.

Maldon Yard was a hive of activity today, with the carriage crew working hard away on two separate projects, an IA wagon and an M wagon. The steel body wagon is receiving some needle gunning down in the depot while the cattle wagon is being repaint and repairing up at the Goods Shed.

We had another volunteer beavering away on cleaning up the old Castlemaine Level Crossing Gate bollards – another exciting little project we’re hoping to show off soon!

These smaller projects are all in the spirit of lifting Maldon’s appearance, improving the experience for our visitors and volunteers and getting us back to showing off the now extremely unique features of a country branch line and showcasing the history of our railway. 

We did take one other picture… a reference pic for a new fan belt, which has seen much better days! It’s not very exciting, but it’s another thing we contend with on a fairly regular basis. We do undertake very regular maintenance on our equipment, which is one reason we’re able to keep this old gear performing without more issues – however it does all take time and effort and ahead of the big resleepering program, we will be undertaking some further maintenance over the next few days.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon at 8am, for an action-packed day of depot activities.