We had an extremely successful day today, with our new turnout almost complete.

We began the day by finishing off the headshunt, dropping out the rest of the rails, bolting it all together and clipping it up.

This was all done the easy way, squeezing everything up with the grabs and only using the handtools when needed – certainly saved some time, this doesn’t work accurately enough for out on the running line, but for a siding, what we’ve done will be adequate for at least 100 years.

We tried something a little different this time, before installing the curved rails, we ballasted what we could from the tipper and the rest using the digger.

This was a massive improvement, as we didn’t have to spend hours shovelling rock around the complex trackwork, just a few scrapes with the bucket, a quick blow and we were in business.

Like the turnout before, the ground below had been installed with a fall to aid drainage, as such the straight leg required a very small lift only, while the other leg did need some jacking. The laser level proved its value once again!

Before long it was into cutting rail ready to install the closures. We got very lucky with the cool weather today for rail cutting, however a good dampen down before and after the cuts was still a good idea.

Before long it was into the fine tweaking of the curve to ensure it was consistent and smooth, it most clearly wasn’t at the time of this photo, however it turned out very nicely.

The usual processing of drilling, spiking and installing the matching rail followed, all with what seemed like a minimum of fuss.

A bit of final ballasting certainly saw the job nicely in hand.

We’re rather proud of our efforts for this week, we’ve still got a bit to go tomorrow, spreader bars, point lever etc etc however it’s likely we’ll knock them over.

We do however have a small excursion to Muckleford planned tomorrow morning, however we’ll still meet at Maldon at 8am, then off to Muckleford by 8.30am, all being well we’ll be back to Maldon by morning tea to continue with our works.

It didn’t take us too long today to get the straight lengths of the new turnout installed.

We’ve fastened everything up, right to the toe of the points, however we’re yet to fit and spreader bars etc… so for the time being the temporary end of usable track is much as it was previously.

This turnout has been built to a much lesser standard than our usual jobs, mainly due to its main use being only on the straight and we’re also scratching for sleeper plates and pandrol clips for turnouts now, so we’ve done the best we could with what we had available. We’ll beef us the fastenings on the curve when we get to that part.

It’s all starting to come back together now.

Thursday’s crew, should have much better weather. Meeting at Maldon from 8am

We had a successful day today, with the temporary headshunt removed, timbers dropped out and rails roughly positioned.

All going well tomorrow, we’ll get the straight leg fixed down, however that may be a little optimistic with the weather predicted.

Meeting at Maldon from 8am.

Today was all about preparing the various components needed to build the turnout next week.

Of course, all the point timbers we needed were at the bottom of the pile! So, most of the day was dedicated to sorting them out. However, we got there, and now the piles look much neater.

We also laid out all the bits of turnout we had on hand, to begin working out what went where.

We didn’t lay it out exactly, but we determined which rails will be used where in the turnout. We had everything we needed – you’d almost think we’d had a bit of practice.

The view from the platform shows the headshunt taking shape.

We’ve had an extremely successful week in our fund-raising efforts through the buy a sleeper campaign, raising around $40,000 of that this week!!!

To ensure we can continue getting these sleepers installed, we still need to raise a bit more. If you’re able to help, in any way at all, we’d get there in no time!

Donations can be made securely on the official VGR website https://www.vgr.com.au/product/buy-a-sleeper/406?cs=true&cst=custom

Next week’s crew will be installing the turnout in Maldon Yard. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday meeting at Maldon from 8am.