The last movement over the old Sawmill Road Crossing this afternoon.

And once the train was out of the way, it was into destruction mode – we’re good at that bit. We’ve lifted the rails on the UP side of the crossing, and got those on the Down side holding on by just one bolt to allow easy digger access in the morning, then we’ll be ripping it all up!

We’ll be on site from 7am in the morning. However, the man power will be really needed after lunch, so please feel free to have a bit of a later start. Parking, if possible, please keep well away from the crossing to keep our machinery and access. There is plenty of room down by the Bridge, and it’s only a short stroll.

Today began with a thorough benching.

The Maldon Men’s Shed built and donated some hardwood timber benches for use at Muckleford Station.

The VGR installation crew and the Maldon Men’s Shed on hand to test out the seats.

The hard part for us was digging the holes deep enough for these weighty beasts! They’ve been concreted in and had termite treatment installed to ensure they’re a Muckleford Fixture for many years to come. We spent a long time choosing the height, correct distance from wall for comfort and future building painting, and then choosing a location – it turns out the door is not central, so that changed things a little.

They came up a treat however, Thanks Heaps Maldon Men’s Shed!

Out at Sawmill Road we got to check out the exciting signs warning of Thursday’s road closure!

We then unloaded the last of the materials needed there before we installed new crossing signs, as the old ones were well past their best before date – mainly the posts, we’ve reused any signage that was still good.

We’re still set to replace the crossing at Sawmill Road on Thursday, history has shown we need people from lunchtime onwards, as up till then it’s all digger work.  We’ll be on site from 7.30am however for any too eager to miss out on the action.

It’s a little hard to tell in the photo, however the main purpose of the day was to improve the top of the track approaching the crossing, this is a before, with the after below.

You might have to take our word for it, but there is a difference.

We also made use of the day to do as much tidying up as possible, such as dragging rails over the old crossing rather than damaging the new surface.

A similar treatment occurred on the Down side, however being much shorter this didn’t take overly long.

We then headed towards Castlemaine, where on the way we corrected a slight kink that was developing just off Pyrenees Hwy Bridge.

It’s a bit hard to tell in the photo, but it’s now greatly improved, we moved around 50m of track to ease the tight spot and improve the transitions, much better now. We did make sure that all sleeper ends had ballast well packed to prevent any movement, that was probably the cause, lack of sufficient rock on hand after jacking and tamping there some time back.

The crew working on the water column cleaning and painting are making good progress, making use of a digger visiting Castlemaine today to have it flipped over, ready to repeat on the other side.

We also attempted to correct a few minor building issues at Castlemaine, the only thing we successfully achieved was cleaning out a gutter, otherwise every thing we touched was either call a tradesman or sufficient broken that new bits need ordering.

We did tick off one job there, being the fitting of anchors to the rerailed section of 3 Road. Which was nice one to have behind us.

Tuesday’s crew will meet at Maldon at 8am, we’ll be doing a few odd jobs as we get the last of the hardware etc… out to Sawmill Road crossing

Still a long way to go to rebuild the crossing, however we’re a way closer now, with both sides of the crossing now heavier rail, with just the very crossing itself to go.

We’d strategically left enough 60lb to permit the installation of some welded junction rails back when we rerailed last year. The down side and crossing will be 94lb, while the up side is 80lb. Why? Because it is, it’s a sheer fluke that the change in weights ended up so close to the crossing. However, it’s fortuitous should this crossing ever get flashing lights.

We did as much pre work as we could prior to the digger arriving on site, which included fastening up a few timber sleepers that’ll remain for now, on the Down side of the crossing.

Once the digger was there however, it was all systems go dragging rail across the roadway and lining everything up to get the welded junctions square.

After some double and triple checking, we marked up and begun cutting. It’s all too late now if we’re wrong!

For some reason, despite us collecting everything in pairs, there were no matching pairs of junction rails in the stockpiles! So one had to be cut to suit – this is probably not a surprise as most of the junctions on the Guildford track were in locations that also altered the joint stagger, so side for side they probably were a little different.

We had to add in a short section of 80lb on the end of the welded junction rails to enable a transition back to the 60lb to allow trains to run until next Thursday, however it’s much better to do a little extra work in the lead up rather than try to squeeze it all into the rebuild.

Once we were happy with the critical end, the up end of the rails were cut to length as required to join up with the 80lb that was installed last year.

The little digger had been beavering away installing concrete sleepers, in place of failed timber ones, on the Down side of the  crossing, while all the other excitement was occurring.

Once they were clipped up, the UP side received the same treatment. A total of 22 sleepers were replaced today, leaving about 42 to be replaced next week during the rebuild.

A bit of a tidy up was had following clipping up. This section is quickly becoming a case of spot the timber sleeper and hopefully, all going well, it’ll only be a few more years and it’ll be a sea of concrete.

We’ve started bringing sleepers down to the crossing in readiness for next week.  There is a bit more preparation we can do, however, not a great amount until the road is closed.

It’s a little hard to tell, however the section up from the crossing has been lined, tided and just awaits jacking and tamping tomorrow.

We need to set our levels either side of the crossing tomorrow, so we’ll be spending most of the day jacking and packing as required to achieve that. All going well, we’ve got a small job in Castlemaine to knock over also, however we’ll sacrifice that if need be. Meeting at Sawmill Road Crossing from 8.45am.