We had a very successful day today, covering the length of the line during the track walk, we’ve still got a bit of Maldon Yard to go, but on the whole it’s done.

The usual calibration and checking of the rolling gauge was done before heading off.

And head off we did. You’ll be happy to know all concrete sleepered track was excellent gauge and we didn’t have any issues on the timber sections this time either, which was great – it’s not accidental as we’ve targeted the likely failure areas with the concrete sleepering.

Hours of fun were had with this task. However, very few issues were found, almost all were so minor they were corrected within minutes of finding them.

The odd bolt needed a tighten, but even these were much less than other years, which was nice.

Unfortunately, as predicted, the timber that remains between Pipeline Crossing and Muckleford is well and truly on its last legs. It’ll hold through until March when 100% replacement is proposed however once the really hot weather hits we will be lowering the speeds to keep it safe for trains to travel over, the worst is thankfully confined to a 500m stretch so it’s relatively easy to manage.

The boys decided to set Will up for failure at afternoon tea today, probably a bit of retaliation for making them walk through to Castlemaine in the heat!

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon from 8am, we’ve got a few bits to finish around Maldon and a couple of jobs to knock over at Maldon before we jump back into some more sleepers next week.

Well, after a clean up and repaint up at the workshops, the north end water column has been stood up again.

The slight irony being we needed to bring in water to give it a wash following the standing, as we did get it a bit dirty.

The columns here are purely ornamental, if we become extremely flush with cash, we may one day install the plumbing, however there’s a few things to tick off the jobs list first.

Today’s gang decided to enter in a very mobster like fashion, giving an almost intimidating feel….. thankfully, the intimidating wasn’t overly long lived.

The main task of the day, although it have seem like a bit more of a side quest, was to inspect the track around Castlemaine Yard, which returned some extremely favourable results, the best results we’ve ever had here – which is good given the effort we’ve put into it in recent times.

We did get a surprise upon discovering this little brown snake having a nice sun bake beside the platform at Castlemaine, thankfully no aggressive was shown by any party and after confirming our bunch were of no interest to it, the snake slithered away.

The south end column, although we forget to get a picture… has been lowered and transported up to the workshop for the same treatment. Having these painted will lift the appearance of the area greatly and we look forward to when the whole place looks spick and span.

Thursday’s crew will begin track walking duties from Maldon, starting there at 8am before trudging off in search of faults.

Unfortunately today’s works didn’t go exactly to plan, so we’ll be needed at Castlemaine for a few hours at least tomorrow morning, meeting at Castlemaine from 8.15am, please park in the car park as a large truck is expected.

A jack, pack and tidy up of yesterday’s work left it looking very smart, unfortunately it really shows up how rough the remaining timber section is now, not too long to go now and this section should be complete.

We spent a good portion of the day ballasting and tamping the new turnout in Maldon, which has come up looking an absolute treat.

The afternoon was spent transferring some machinery down to Castlemaine in readiness for a few jobs there early next week.

All going well, we’ll be onto track inspection tasks on Tuesday, most likely starting at Castlemaine, however time will tell, check back Monday night to confirm.