Today’s efforts have us a big step closer to the end of this job.

We now have the straight track connected and completed.

The curved track is now located and positioned where it comes out of the turnout. It actually looks really good, the pictures don’t do it justice.

It’s staring to look very smart! You can see the track in the background that we’ve yet to build, but by comparison that will be quite straight forward.

We’ve even got the point lever fixed in and working! They’re now a real set of points.

The concreters are finished and the concrete is now sitting while it hardens. Hopefully we can wait till early next week to do a test run over it, to allow maximum hardening. The job’s really starting to look quite finished!

We’ll have a gang on both Thursday and Friday this week to finish off the track building and tamping.

Well the gang is very proud after cutting the curved turnout rails, to the correct length. We even achievied a great looking curve, which can be a bit hard to do.

There would’ve been more pics but the wind and rain came up just after lunch and sent us running for cover.

Tomorrow, weather depending, should see the last of the sleepers and rails in place and hopefully even spiked down!

A new week and well refreshed crew resulted in a very productive Monday.

After today’s effort we have fastened down both straight rails in the turnout, which required cutting to appropriate lengths and lining to ensure they were perfectly straight.

Here Bazz and Ian are cutting and drilling rail.

Drilling some more holes before bolting up the rails and fastening them down.

The team tidying up after a long days work, very proud of their efforts.

Back at the other end of the job and concrete pouring has begun, this should be completed and well on the way to curing once we’ve completed the turnout.

We’ll be on site all this week, still plenty of time to help out!.

Most of today was spent preparing the rest of the turnout and beginning the installation.

But first off we level some more crushed rock and gave a small tamp to the straight track near the sheds, ready for concreting.

The gang smoothing off after the tamping.

Ian from the workshops spent the day on a jumping jack compacting the rock around the sleepers ready for the concrete pour.

The end product, looking very smart!

Unrelated, but we had some entertainment today, the lift of an X class. It was certainly the main discussion point over afternoon tea.

The first bits fixed down, from now on we should have fairly plain sailing as it is largely a big mechanco set.

Well be back all next week, so please if you’re free and interested, you’re very welcome to join us.