We said we’d get it finished today and we certainly did.

You can see from pic the large radius of the curve, requiring around 50 14.5m lengths of 80lb rail to complete.

All spiking and a first tamp to support all the sleepers was finished by this afternoon, so we can now set our sights on the low leg, with first half planned for next week and the rest after Easter.

Here you can see the tamper squeezing ballast under a sleeper near the end of the job, the ballast here is still very much VR gravel and loco ash, holding up amazing well but starting to show signs of clumping and holding water… A bit of a hint a mud hole could appear here before too many years.

You can also see how little material we have left to lift and tamp the sleepers with, once our re-railing is complete, a sizeable amount of ballast will be needed on most of the line to keep it in good order for years to come.

Although previously advertised as a Castlemaine workday, due to the hot predicted weather and total fire ban the work day WILL NOT OCCUR.

Please watch this space, as we will notify here details of future workdays.

Although previously advertised as a Castlemaine workday, due to the hot predicted weather and total fire ban the work day WILL NOT OCCUR.

Please watch this space, as we will notify here details of future workdays.

Well today saw the remaining rails for the high leg of curve 16 laid out, bolted together, joined in and all sleeper plates in place.

We’ve dogged down around 8 of the 25 lengths, with the remainder being the work of tomorrow’s crew.

We were much luckier with the weather today, reaching a comfortable top of around 23C.

We’ll be back into it tomorrow, ready for trains this weekend.