Hot… it was hot, humid and inside the cutting just generally pretty horrible.

However it wasn’t without success, we’ve installed and clipped up 80 sleepers, leaving only 80 more to go tomorrow, the final pass is always a bit tedious, however it is generally a lot easier as there isn’t any unspiking or jewellery collection to do.

It’s a very significant section of the cutting completed in a 1 in 2 pattern now.

The section of timber that remains is very comfortably one weeks work, providing everything runs smoothly tomorrow we’ll be in with a very strong chance of knocking it over next week.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon at 7.45am or out on site around 8am, it’s very very very likely it’ll be an early finish due to the heat and if the late storm that’s predicted does eventuate it’d be nice to be home before it arrives.

We spent all morning preparing for resleepering, however there wasn’t enough of us to make any significant start on changing any, however we’re well prepared for Thursday.

We did however have enough hands to complete the platform rebuilding works, the majority of this occurred on Monday, however the final touches were placed on it today.

We used a Lime Mortar, as it had been previously, except it turns out this isn’t the first repair here, as quite an amount of cement mortar was found in places and that is likely what caused it to fall apart, we just gave it a helping hand, however the historical patch has certainly damaged a few bricks. We’ve repaired what we could, one day and probably with a lot of money it will need to be pulled right back to ground level and rebuilt in this corner – it’s very likely there is little to foundation left.

The funny coping stone angles are no actually from our repair, they were like that previously, we didn’t gave a lot of scope to modify that unfortunately but it’s at least as good as before and hopefully better.

Once the mortar has properly hardened, likely to be a few weeks, we can give it all a proper clean up.

Various other odd jobs were tended to also, which was nice, however it’ll mean we’ve got a few big days Thursday and Friday to ensure we can complete the resleepering this year. Meeting Maldon 8am on Thursday.

Today was spent preparing the next section to be resleepered, the short stretch to the curve. It’s unfortunate hard, dust and today it was also very hot work.

It’s been marked up and the concrete sleepers spaced out ready to go in where required. There is 300 sleepers to install to get down to the occupation crossing and another 25-30 to join up with curve 20.

It is probably a bit ambitious for next week’s weather forecast. However, it is certainly achievable before Christmas.

We’ll be into it in haste on Tuesday to try knock over as much as we can, the more hands the merrier, meeting at Maldon 8am on Tuesday.

The following is a collection of pics that show off the long stretch of concretes.

A very successful day today, getting up and over the crest of the rise.

It was a very nice feeling being able to look over the rise and see the concretes beyond, only a short gap to fill now!

Today saw us install 159 sleepers, all clipped up but awaiting a jack and pack.

We even had a guest visit today, Matt from McLeod Rail, coming to see how the pour cousins of the railway world make do with what they’ve got!

It’s hard to see, however the gap of remaining timber can be just seen behind the digger. Hopefully, with a concerted effort, next week should see that removed, giving us continuous concrete sleepers from Maldon to Pipeline Crossing.

Tomorrow’s crew will spend most of the day preparing for the next section, however if that goes to plan, we might get a few more sleepers installed. Meeting at Maldon at 8am or on site from 8.15am.