An excellent day was had today, with an additional 149 concrete sleepers installed into Tangent 20-21.

Tuesday’s crew did do the preparation of unspiking 1 in 4, removing anchors etc… however the bulk of the work occurred today and at a great pace.

We have learnt the process is much quicker if the area that was ramped previously has all the spikes removed, as these don’t have much room below the sleepers for knocking off.

It was all pretty regular and normal, nothing new or exciting, however it did seem to flow very well.

A quick spray with soluble oil really does make all the difference.

By close of play today, it was all clipped up, lined and looking very smart.

It may seem a bit hard to tell from the pics. However, before it was a very rough, tired, and in all honesty pretty poor section of track, while the resleepered bit looks leaps and bounds better and has an amazingly better line and top, even without us running through with the jacks yet.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon at 7.45am, then out to site to jack, pack and tidy up, before we head into Maldon to Ballast the new turnout!

At 11am today, John, our resident musician, gave the bugle call to mark remembrance day.

There was a big turn out of 1, however, we hope the call was heard through bits of Maldon as we remembered.

Friday was successful, with more mowing knocked over (the bulk of it really) and some piles of rubbish burnt and then extinguished ahead of the fire bans.

Tomorrow’s crew will, among other odd jobs, begin preparation for some more concrete sleepering out past the old tip crossing, hopefully this week will see another 120 or so installed, which gets us that bit closer to reaching the curve which is just out of site over the rise currently.

Meeting Maldon 8am tomorrow

We had all the toys out for a play today, with the aim being to reduce the lineside grass and remove a few bits of foul foliage.

The area between Boundary Trk and Rifle Range Bridge had lots of little bits of foliage that were close or hitting trains, so these have been removed and left in the bush to help give a bit of habitat.

The flail mower was off working closer to Castlemaine and the difference down that was is very impressive.

We even tackled a rather messy area of gorse and blackberry, using the ever so delicate rip method we’ve become quite good at.

All these items have been loaded into the tipper and taken to Muckleford for disposal tomorrow.

In amongst all this, quite a bit of whipper snipping has been done around Winters Flat Bridge and the crossing. We’ve got a bit more to go tomorrow but we’re looking pretty good.

The fire restrictions come in Monday and we’ve got a bonfire heap at Muckleford to burn tomorrow ahead of that. As such we’ll be meeting at Maldon briefly around 7.45am, then down by Winters Flat Bridge for a little more mowing, then hopefully we’ll make our way through to Muckleford around 10am.

It’s been a busy few days, with very little posted up here, so a quick recap follows.

Friday

Friday ended up being another successful day, with another visit from a train while testing various aspects of all things rolling stock etc… however it did give us a chance to test the newly fitted point lever.

Which was installed, with slight ramp for access, on the opposite side of the track to the previous arrangement (we even used a different lever, but don’t tell anyone – the other one was a bit bent).

An enormous amount of time was spent tidying up the whole area, especially the grass and picnic area, which was in need of some love, we’re quite proud so please come on out to Maldon and enjoy it.

The success of Friday flowed onto this week, with the flail mower brought back into use. A collection of dead branches / leaves / storm fallings having been collected around Castlemaine and transported away to a more appropriate location, to help lessen the fire risk around town and improve the ease of mowing.

Today saw us lend the workshops a hand, helping with some bogie lifts and wheel swaps, overall it’s been productive.

Tomorrow’s crew will have a change of pace, tending to some rather overgrown foliage closer to Castlemaine, that is now contacting the train as it passes.

We’ll be meeting at Maldon at 8am and heading out in force to tackle these issues ahead of the fire season commencing on Monday.