Well after what has been a pretty big week, we are now proud to say we’re over half way through the recovery project, still a lot to go, but we’re making significant headway.

We spent today towing a good number of rails over Fryers Rd, with our new and improved ski jump.

This very short section before the crossing must have been resleepered just before the line closed, as it’s the only section so far that has been good enough to jack and pack up! This version of the ski jumped proved to be ideal, giving us heaps of clearance.

On Monday we’ll be back here, moving the dragged rails up to Stephen Street and bring the next lot up to Fryers Rd, ready for more over the roading on Tuesday.

We’d also like to put out a small plea for assistance…. Given the enormous amount of grass growth this season, all of the road and pedestrian crossings around Castlemaine are in serious need of a whipper snip. If anyone in the area feels inclined to help us out a little, so we can stay focused on the rail recovery project, we would be extremely greatful. Please contact ganger@vgr.com.au if you’re able to help.

A very bad picture from today, but it does sort of show what we have achieved. All the remain track fastenings from Donkey Gully Rd to Guildford have now been collected and stockpiled at convenient locations.

But that wasn’t all, we’ve even prepared Fryers Rd crossing for rail towing, a ramp has been installed on the south side and a dip in the track just on a bit has been patched up, ready to start towing rail down to Steven St. tomorrow from 8.15am.

Well we’re into clean up mode at the moment. All the fastenings between Donkey Gully Rd and Hutchinson’s Ln Bridge have now been stockpiled.

Tomorrow’s gang will be working on the section between Yapeen Rd and Hutchinson’s Ln Bridge, meeting midway between the two from 8.15am.

We ended last week quite successfully, despite a significant deluge of rain, all of the loose rails moved over Donkey Gully Rd earlier in the week were towed down to Fryers Rd.

We did hint a couple of weeks back at the ski jump, the purpose of which is shown above. It simply allows enough clearance below the bottom of the digger for a rail to be projected ahead of the digger out over the crossing. It worked very well, and we think we can probably make a few refinements for the next crossing. Normally the digger would become beached on the rail as soon as the rail sits more than about 50mm above normal rail height – this solved that well.

We did very well today, with everything South of Donkey Gully Road now lifted and towed to the north – it still needs shuffling up to Fryers Road which will keep us busy later in the week.

But the significant part of this milestone is that it marks half way! We’ve lifted around 4.5kms of track (or 9km of rail). It certainly doesn’t mean we’re half way through the job however, as we still need to do a lot of cleaning up back towards Guildford and there is now an enormous amount of towing to get the rail through to Castlemaine, but at least it feels like we’re making progress.

Tomorrow and for the majority of this week we will put our time into cleaning up, with the fastenings to be collected up and stacked by the road crossings, sleepers to be lifted and roadbed roughly levelled. Meeting tomorrow 8.30am at Donkey Gully Road.