Another very successful day, with 60 more concrete sleepers installed and all tamped up.

These 60 were comparatively easy, compared to yesterday’s 114 given the very shallow cutting and no high embankments.

We had such a turnout of helpers from the Middleton Prison that we had all the sleepers in and clipped up well before lunch.

To keep the gang busy after lunch we replaced the 27 life expired timber sleepers in this section, giving us a very good strong track.

An excellent way to round off the re-sleepering program for 2019.

It’s not quite the Christmas break yet, next week will still be a normal week, being the completion of the retaining wall at Castlemaine. If the extreme temperatures forecast allow us! -watch this space.

Tuesday morning will be the completion of the detailed track inspection, we’ve only got about 1.5km to go, so feel free to join us from 8am at Maldon.

Another day and another 114 concrete sleepers installed.

Given the amount of time we’ve had to put into the new retaining wall at Castlemaine, we haven’t had much preparation time for this job. However we did have plenty of timber sleepers from the previous straight to bundle up.

This kept the gang busy while the first 60 odd concretes were inserted.

The stacks are all located conveniently track-side for later moving with the excavator to a stack that we can then side load onto a train.

We’re starting to get the hang of these new grabs, which is proving to really speed up the operation. We can’t quite keep ahead of the clipping up crew but it’s not far off it now.

Scarifier and digger hard at work, with the clipping up (hidden by the shrubbery) hot on their heels.

The new grabs are proving to be far gentler on the concrete, with little to no damage. Something which the old grabs weren’t always that good at.

We’ve only got another 60 concretes track-side to install tomorrow, which by today’s efforts should only be a morning’s work! Meeting Maldon 7.45am or on site from 8.15am. This will be the last re-sleepering for 2019 so why not join us.

 

Well after two very long and hard days, we now have all the uprights in place and braced ready for a concrete pour.

The retaining wall we’re constructing is to separate the access road from the new engine shed, which has a significant height difference.

We’re keeping in a very typical railway style, making it all from old rail.

The uprights are spaced at 1200mm centres, with extras around the service trenches where wider spans were required. A total of 41 posts all up – all very heavy and hard to handle!

We employed a fairly simple system of running a length of level 60lb rail along the bottom, to which the 80lb uprights (due their increased strength) were then welded vertically and in turn braced ready for a concrete pour around the uprights. The welding was all thanks to Bazz.

The end result is very impressive! It’ll easily be the best all rail retaining wall on the Railway! The concrete pour should be tomorrow, allowing a week for hardening, before we install the longitudinal rails and back-filling.

Tomorrow and Friday will be a few more Concrete Sleepers in Tangent 8-9, meeting Maldon 8am or site from 8.30am.

Well to round out our odd job week, we ran a very odd looking works train to Castlemaine. The purpose of which was to deliver prepared (cut to length) rails to construct a retaining wall required as part of the earthworks near the new engine shed.

The opportunity was also taken to transfer a carriage to the shed at Castlemaine. The day did however require a fair amount of shunting at all three stations.

Once at Castlemaine with our two wagons loaded with rail for the retaining wall safely secured past the turntable, our attention was turned to putting the carriage in the shed.

This involved pulling out the 3 Y classes that arrived on our railway last weekend – currently living in the shed. We suspect this is a first time in a few years 4 Y classes have been coupled together.

Two of the Y classes are for long term storage, however one (Y157) is very close to being a usable loco (albeit requiring a bit of body work and a paint) and as such we made use of the occupation to transfer this loco to Maldon for the workshops to begin work on its re-activation.

This loco will help alleviate our total dependence on Y133 during the summer months, as well as offering greater flexibility when it comes time to running the hundreds of upcoming ballast, sleeper and rail trains.

Tuesday next week will be works in at Castlemaine, with the start of the retaining wall. It will be an interesting exercise, all welcome. Meet Maldon 8am or site from 8.30am