Another extremely successful day. Around 550m of track (1.1km of rail) has been lifted and towed up to Godfrey Lane.

A fresh gang keen to see the sled in the action.

It’s a pretty neat bit of kit. In some ways the track being so poor is working in our favour.

We’re able to tow on rail, speeding things up greatly. If the sleepers were in good condition, the resistance would probably be too great to tow on rail, but it’s working just like a zipper without straining the big digger. Perfect!

We’re towing up to the joints, breaking the rails, then dragging the loose rail over the sled and towards Castlemaine (for a suitable distance).

The horrendous job of anchor removal is greatly sped up by waiting until the sled has lifted the rail a little, much easier the knock them off when they aren’t buried.

Unfortunately we haven’t devised a super easy collection method for the anchors yet… But we will.

Both diggers were in full employment today, dragging rail. A process we’re now getting quite slick at.

Best off all… We’ve pulled up the mighty heat buckle. It’s nice to have that hurdle behind us.

We’ll be having a big tow day tomorrow, dragging as much rail as we can up towards Donkey Gully Road. Meeting Maldon 7.45am or Godfrey Lane 8.15am. We could use a hand or two… Just to help out with the little odd jobs.

A big morning of towing, using both excavators, cleared the backlog of rail from Yapeen. They’re now up at Godfrey’s Ln.

We even got so excited we dragged out the sled and started more destruction. We’re getting very skilled with the sled, in the afternoon we managed to lift and drag about 400m of track (800m rail).

Some of it’s still to be dragged up, but we’re getting there. The sled has certainly sped up the game.

We’ll be meeting at the location pictured above tomorrow, from around 8.15am (it’s about 400m on the Castlemaine side of Yapeen).

Today’s rather extreme heat lent itself to a half day. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a very successful half day.

The top rail on the retaining wall has been installed.

It’s simply some of our surplus point rodding turned on an angle to give smooth edges should a hand be placed upon it.

The top rail tidies up the wall very nicely.

A very snazzy addition, completing the wall.

While on the job, the existing uprights over the water course also had the same top rail installed, to keep the theme consistent.

Another great day’s work in very unfavourable weather.

Tomorrow will not be a workday on account of leave and high fire danger. We’ll be back into it on Monday, around 8.30am at Yapeen.

It was a big day of rail towing today, with around 20 rails now up to the next crossing.

The gang kept themselves busy re-installing some temporary rails into this very quiet dirt track as that will be by far the easiest way to continue the dragging and the least disruption for all involved.

Job done and tested with a few cars, very snazzy. We’ve got one more dirt track to do in the same way tomorrow, which will allow us to do an enormous amout more rail towing, and of course recovery.

We’ll be back on site tomorrow, meeting at Goudges Ln around 8.15am – 8.30am.