A very exciting day was had today, changing 6 hole fishplates for 4 holers, all in readiness for concrete sleepers to go in in March.

We’ve decided that doing a pallet’s worth a day is quite enough, as it does involve a lot of bending and lifting. A pallet’s worth got us from Pipeline Crossing to a few rail lengths into the curve, certainly a lot more to go. However, each one we do is one less later on.

The afternoon was spent doing a range of tidying up and odd type jobs at Maldon.

Thursday’s gang will head out to do another pallet’s worth of fishplates, before heading up to Maldon to get back into the turnout building. Meeting at Maldon 8am

We had quite a successful day today. Various off jobs around Maldon Yard were completed.

The stock rails for the turnout were soon to install for 3 Roads, didn’t have point chairs fitted. However, these were on hand and before too long both stock rails had chairs fitted and bolted up.

As part of the point chair fitting we needed a few chair bolts, of which a supply was in one of the disused trucks, upon having a proper clean out of the truck we found all sorts of goodies, a whole bucket full in fact!

We’ve been on the hunt for a while for suitable undercover storage option for our bolts and bits that aren’t necessary precious, but are definitely not suited to the outdoor life. As such, we’ve grabbed thia louvre van at Maldon that wasn’t doing much, we’ve got a plan to knock up some cheap racking and it’ll probably house just about everything we need it to. Today saw us get the doors running and locked shut. Our plan has made sure the wagon will still be movable if it is ever needed in traffic. We’ll be working on that between other jobs over the next few weeks.

A works train, with the dual purpose of removing more items from Maldon Yard and a load test of T333 following recent works also occurred today. Both seemed to be quite successful.

There will be no workday tomorrow, due to illness. All being well, things will be back to normal on Tuesday.

2024 has been a big year for the Civil Gangs. Around 4760 concrete sleepers installed, 2 level crossings renewed and the last of the 60lb rail removed from the running line, just to name a few of the big highlights.

Below is a very brief photo collection from the year.

We’re very proud of our efforts and hope the photos show off what a massive amount of work 2024 has seen.

January – it was very much a month dedicated to getting sleepers out of stockpiles and onto the ground.

February – A month of Turnout building and Bridge Works.

March & April – The big sleeper effort began – taking only 7 week to re-sleeper from Curve 20 to Pipeline Crossing.

May – re-railing Winters Flat Bridge – leaving only Sawmill Road Crossing in 60lb between Maldon and Castlemaine. A good few sleepers were installed back near Maldon too.

June – Lots of action, with concrete sleepers installed near Maldon along the straights and major turnout maintenance around Maldon Yard.

July & August – saw plenty of maintenance work around Castlemaine Yard

August / September – 2 level crossings were rebuilt, Woodlocks Lane and Sawmill Road.

October – Major Turnout renewal works in Maldon Yard

November / December – The last big push, to removal all the timber sleepers between Maldon and Pipeline Crossing, giving as 4.2kms of continuous concrete sleepered track.

There was an enormous amount more, just check back through the archives of the blogs to see all the enormous amount of work that was achieved in 2024.

2025 is shaping up to be no less impressive, with more turnout at work at Maldon to occur early in the year, some bridge works and thousands more concrete sleepers to install! It’s only 3.2kms to get to Muckleford from Pipeline Crossing so we’re going to give it a red hot crack! As always, we could always use an extra pair of hands. We’re also desperately needing funds to help purchase the required biscuits and clips needed to complete the planned work for this year – check out the donate page for all the details – anything would be greatly appreciated.

Work is now back on as usual – Tuesday 31st of December will be a regular work day at Maldon Yard, Thursday the 2nd and Friday the 3rd will also be at Maldon – continuing on with the turnout building works.

The following pics are from the 20th Anniversary Celebration Train a few weeks back – showing off our recently completed track, the loco and train in all its glory and part of the group we had with us helping to celebrate the event!

It’s a little hard to believe that it has already been 20 years since we ran the first VGR train right through to Castlemaine Station.

The 18th December 2004 saw the first test train run into Castlemaine to check the signalling, flashing lights, platform clearance and test the turntable.

The first consist and a very proud bunch, all having a very big part in the project.

It must have been a success as only a few hours later K160 returned hauling a train of members and volunteers to enjoy the experience first hand.

The pic above shows the first public train on the 19th December 2004 and a keen eye will note the Railway Reopen sign at the Level Crossing.

Fast forwarding 20 years and we settled upon this date – Thursday 19th December 2024 as the date to celebrate – 20 years since the first public trains into Castlemaine. The combined occasion was also the Civil & Mechanical branch Christmas breakup as well as a great chance to get together and celebrate not only the massive achievement that was getting back to Castlemaine, but the enormous amount of work that the past 20 years has seen. Unfortunately due to being too distracted with speeches etc… not too many pics were taken.

The celebration day saw around 70 of us, current, past and hopefully future track and project volunteers and managers gathering for special train from Castlemaine to Maldon, with a minor stop to show off the works of 2024 before having a well earned lunch and a few drinks at Maldon Station.

It wouldn’t be a true civil function without a good few speeches. Various recollections from the railways past, the project to Castlemaine, the people that make it all possible and power of a volunteer workforce were discussed and many stories shared. A range of well deserved awards were presented to various long term volunteers as well as a range of comical awards for those who had managed to disgrace themselves in imaginative and fun ways over the past few years!

The day was well received by all who attended and did an excellent job in showing off the importance of teamwork in our organisation. Thankyou to everyone who has been a part of the organisation – particularly in regards to our infrastructure, it’s that maintenance work over the past 40+ years that has kept us going – we’re having a big push now to make that maintenance more sustainable into the future, however the railway wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the years of hard work to keep it running – Thankyou.

Easter 2026 will see us celebrate 40 years of operation – pencil that into the diary as hopefully we’ll be a position to celebrate that event in style!