Well the track is now done! A final lift and pack has brought this little bit of track to life, it looks stunning.

We’ll release a more exciting final shot tomorrow, with doors hung and maybe even a headlight poking through the doors….

Today was very success, with another project off the list.

We had a good amount of spare time in the afternoon, so we went like crazy tidying up the great mess that still remains up the north end of the yard, which after the scrap steel is gone, will now look a million times better.

Tomorrow will be our final day at Castlemaine for a while, hanging doors and tidying up the stacks of rails etc… Meeting at Castlemaine from 8.15am

Well the greatly awaited fitting of the doors is well underway. Yesterday saw the West Track of the loco shed doors hung. Temporarily secured shut by some clever ratchet strapping.

Today’s effort included hanging the East Track doors. They’re actually quite easy to hang, it’s getting them in their precise location that takes the effort, once there though, a quick zap with the welder and they’re there to stay. The center doors will be later this week once the track work (ballasting) is complete.

The main task of today’s gang was the removal and breaking up of rails beside the loco shed. This area is earmarked for a workshop and it’s always much easier to do the earthworks without having rails in the way.

By close of the play the area has been cleared of strings of rail and any related debris.

The pile of rails are about our only 60lbAS type rails, other newer branchlines around the state were laid in this greatly improved version of 60lb, but a small section of Castlemaine yard was about all we inherited.

We have carefully broken up all the remaining 60AS all the way to Walker Street and stacked it ready to be loaded onto wagons for eventually re-use in the historical Maldon yards.

It’ll be used to replace the very poor 60lbD that the yard is currently laid in, without loosing the branchline appearance of our historic yard (one day, when we eventually get some spare time).

This pile is everything else lifted today, mainly 60lbD in various lengths and states of health, which will be loaded onto wagons and taken away from Castlemaine.

Tomorrow will see the ballast for the loco shed track delivered and distributed, with Thursday’s gang (meeting from 8.15am at Castlemaine) undertaking the final tamping, lifting and tidying up.

Another successful day. We’ve now completed the trackwork portion of the loco road.

We’ve ballasted, lifted and tamped the run off from the table, with the rock that was dug out from here a few weeks ago.

The rest of the track has been jacked to very near it’s final height and blocked in place with lots of packers. This will allow us to bucket in the gravel ballast without having to try and lift through the gravel.

The end result looks pretty good, certainly a much higher class than is really needed for a loco road.

In the afternoon, we loaded all of our drums and pallets of jewellery that we’ve slowed amassed in the Yard onto wagons ready for taking away to a better home.

We also turned two of the ballast hoppers, so that all of the discharge wheels were on the same side.

And the first few metres of our new track were tested by resting the ballast plough there while the hoppers were turned.

It’s been a very successful couple of weeks. Tomorrow, owing to a small backlog of small odd jobs and very low gang numbers we’ve called it off as a workday.

Tuesday next week will be a gang as usual, 8am at Maldon. And with any luck the ballast will be on site before Thursday to allow us to complete the loco road.

Well after a busy day today, the centre track into the loco shed is more or less complete (the building it part anyway).

Some more material dropping out yesterday saw all gang arrive today to this view, all the sleepers out and the rail roughly dropped in position.

By morning tea however, all that was bolted together and clipping up was well underway.

We’ve built a temporary track over the pit, mainly as this is the quickest way of setting our levels for the track off the pit and it gives us somewhere to work from when it comes to fitting timber to the next pit over.

It’s looking pretty snazzy, there is a little bit of lining to do, but very little, that’s the benefit of having it all pegged out before we started.

Building track with 80/94lb rail and concrete sleepers is a essentially a mechano big set, in comparison to working with timber! It’s still a bit of hard work but nothing like drilling holes and driving dog spikes.

We’re not quite done here, so Thursday will be back here from 8.15am to tie up all the loose ends and mark a brief start on the ballasting and lifting.