Yesterday saw the completion of the 82 (not 78 as we thought Thursday) concrete sleepers in curve 8.

The final biscuits and clips were in in no time.

Then onto the brilliantly dusty job of ballast spreading.

The whole length received a tamp with Rolf sighting any dips and twists. It is probably one of best looking sections we’ve done so far and we’re pretty happy with it.

We also made use of our gang to bundle all the reusable sleepers from this curve as well as from curve 10.

Next week will be more of the same, which will see this curve finished and onto the next.

Another busy day concrete sleepering.

Unfortunately not all our plans came off, with our regular assistants from Middleton Prison having to call in sick at the 11th hour.

We did however still achieve an enormous amount. We had hoped to finish the whole curve this week but it’ll only take a day to complete it next week now.

As the screws had been removed on Tuesday, only this one damaged screw required attention. Sleepers were also distributed and pads installed on Tuesday.

We tried a couple of small differences today, the first being our new shovel measurer… A simple bit of 50mm RHS welded on the end of one of our broken shovels, bent to this shape. It removes the need for the wooden blocks. It actually worked really well and certainly sped things up.

While the lifting was happening, all jewellery was distributed as well as the old collected and removed.

Morning tea shows the gang well and truly enjoying a relax. It wasn’t overly hot but the humidity was high.

Another alteration was using the digger to hold up the sleepers while the first inner biscuit was installed and clipped. This saved a lot of manpower, probably not quicker but it was better use of our workforce.

This was followed up by the gauger and small crew installing the other inner biscuit and clip.

We didn’t install any of the outer biscuits until much later which certainly sped up proceedings.

By 2pm we’d inserted and started the clipping of all 78 that we’d set out to do so we started installing the outer biscuits and clips and achieved around 20 before we knocked off.

The last clip of the day going on, a nice feeling knowing we’d achieved so much and still had tomorrow to finish off.

We’ll be back tomorrow finishing off the clipping then sorting the removed sleepers and bundling the reusable one. Meet Maldon 8am or site from 8.30am.

Another good day on the track, with 176 concrete sleepers dropped out in various places for the next few jobs.

The afternoon was spent preparing more 80lb rail.

34 lengths were prepared and loaded onto a wagon. These will be for the UP leg near Bendigo Road.

Next week will be another big one, with our aim being to install at least 100 of the 124 concretes needed in curve 8. It’s success is largely due to any preparation we can do on Tuesday, so any extra hands Tuesday would be very greatly appreciated.

With the impending arrival of ‘The Royal Train’ (check out vgr.com.au for details) we have brought forward out next round of sleepers required in Castlemaine Yard.

Only 27 were needed and none were critical, however it’ll ensure we don’t need to divert our busy gang from its other tasks while hosting the visiting train over the next few months.

It was all just done in the usual way, but being a bit more fiddly than usual due to all the things that get in the way in yards! The scarifier was used in most locations, with the digger handling those that it couldn’t.

We even had to do some delicate hand digging for some timbers near the signal box, interlaced with all the point rodding and signal cables.

All of which went perfectly to plan.

We only have available 2nd hand timber, some of which won’t see all that many years, however it will tide us over comfortably until we can find the time to do a more thorough rebuilt / referb of the yard as our use of it grows.

It was a very successful day, with all 27 replaced and all the tidying up completed.

We had thought it might take us into tomorrow, however we’re now going to distribute concrete sleepers, ready for next week. Meeting Maldon at 8am or curve 8 (near boundary track crossing) from about 8.30am.