VicTrack contractors have almost completed their works on the Shunters Shed in Castlemaine Yard.

The shed had seen much better days. Being on the historic register VicTrack has funded a structural and cosmetic restoration of the building, which is looking very impressive!

With only a few more days work the job will be completed and the building will now be available for VGR. It will become a real asset once we begin operations from Castlemaine.

The new pile in Muckleford Creek Bridge is in.

The pile in and back filled. John is seen here lining up the angle iron for bolt hole drilling.

Lots of onlooking while holes are marked and drilled.

This will likely complete the pile replacement bridge work for this year as we expect the weather will begin to get a bit wetter.

Next week we will be re-railing and we’re a few hands down so any help on Thursday or Friday would be greatly appreciated.

Today saw the removal of pile 2L from the bridge. It was the next in line for replacement, with the new pile going in tomorrow.

Here the digger is digging out around the pile, to allow removal and determine the condition of the sill below the base of the pile.

One job that was required before the pile removal was adjusting the cross head position (the timbers running across the top of the piles) as for some reason these particular cross heads were slightly off set, rather than centred. We again used our mighty machine to do the heavy work, after we’d jacked the weight of the deck.

Once we’d moved the cross heads, a bit of beam straightening was also needed, some gentle pushing and pulling with the bucket sorted that out very easily.

Ian and Norm preparing the tongues on the new pile.

Using the grab to remove the old pile, we found after removing the pile the sill (timber raft that the pile sits on) was in remarkably good condition and did not require replacement, likely replaced only some 25 years ago.

We also drilled and bolted up the opposite pile, needing all new bolt holes after the cross head movement.

A surprise guest vehicle even joined the gang today! Ian’s Dodge, being run in after recent engine works, made the trip down from Bendigo.

No pics unfortunately, however we also had another gang working on breaking up the strings of 60lb rail, on the station side of the bridge. This allows us to remove the old rail for storage, making grass slashing and sleeper replacements much easier.

Today’s small crew tackled a few odd jobs around the railway.

We replaced a point timber at Maldon, fixed up a broken down pipe at Muckleford, sorted some dog spikes and mended a damaged door hinge!

Just another day on the track gang.