All 430 (is he) sleepers from yesterday had their pads installed before being placed to the side of the track.

They look very smart all sitting neatly beside the track.

We even inserted 1 concrete sleeper, testing out our new grabs… Extremely fast and easily.

We’ll do a bit of a feature on these later this week… (once we’ve mastered them!)

To stand on Sawmill Rd and look either way, it’s just concrete sleepers as far as the eye can see.

Just 400 have been spaced out along the track, ready to have their pads installed first thing tomorrow, before being placed aside ready to go in.

This would have happen sooner, but it’s been difficult to get a train free Monday / Tuesday for some time, so we grabbed the opportunity.

If nothing else it looks impressive.

You’re welcome to join us tomorrow, Maldon 8am or site from 8.45am

Well today was a very big day for the VGR with the official “Turning of the first sod” for the Service Re-orientation Project. Unfortunately we didn’t have available a golden or silver shovel, by the trusty old Cyclone off the truck did the job perfectly!

(For more details of the project please see – http://www.vgr.com.au/Service%20Reorientation%20Project.pdf )

It was officiated very enthusiastically by Hon. Jaclyn Symes Minister for Regional Development and our own local MP Maree Edwards. It is with much thanks to these two, their departments and the excellent crew at Regional Development Victoria that our exciting project is up and running.

The project is actually made up of two smaller projects, the details are in the link above but essentially it is broken up into Castlemaine Redevelopment and Track Upgrade. Both critical things to our long term aims, objectives and most importantly a sustainable future.

There was quite the crowd there for the ceremony and we even treated the party to a trip to Maldon to show them just what their support has enabled for our track gang – the feeling we got back was that it has been money well spent!

Not ones to miss an opportunity, we even showed off our rather stunning looking civil train, we’ve very proud of it. Freshly loaded with concrete sleepers looking very important and progressive.

But we weren’t content with just showing off our wagons and sleepers, we also proceeded to drop them out along tangent 8-9 ready for insertion in the following weeks. Today’s drop out of 208 sleepers, along with the 226 dropped out on this straight a few weeks ago takes us to about half way along this very long straight. – It’ll keep us busy for a while getting all these in.

The day started with heads down, bums up. Collecting all the jewellery left over from last weeks re-railing.

Another last – hopefully! Although we’ll be doing this once we get to the other section it will be different, hopefully with less double handling. However we’ve stacked all the jewellery from this into drums, onto pallets or into containers ready for storage, re-use or disposal. It really tidies up the site.

We also took the opportunity to break up the last of the 60lb rail from this straight, but not before dragging it up to a much easier location. All the plates and bolts have also been sorted. Our lifting and tamping works from last Friday have received great praise from our train crews – it’s good to know our works gets noticed.

We even took the opportunity to stack all the surplus materials neatly and orderly, ready for loading onto a train at some stage for transport to more appropriate homes.

The afternoon was spent correcting some bad track geometry at the down end of Muckleford Creek Bridge, under the expert eyes of Victorian Railways trained Mick and Rolf. We lifted some significant dips just off the bridge, as well as completely re-lining the approach curve and first few lengths of rail onto the bridge. The end result is very impressive! (Only the rest of the track to go now).

Tomorrow will be attending to some materials in Castlemaine Yard that require shifting for the upcoming works – exciting times! Meeting Maldon 7.30am or Castlemaine from 8.30am.

On a sadder note, many readers may have known track gang regular (not so much recently, but for many years) Rob Fletcher. Rob unfortunately passed away suddenly today – for further details please visit the Members Area of the VGR Website.