It turns out that we haven’t lost our touch, we very comfortably installed 100 concrete sleepers today, on the up side of the old tip crossing.

The day didn’t begin well, with the digger throwing a tantrum as a result of it raining, however once we drained the water from the lead going to the effected solenoid, it all went like a charm.

It was noting revolutionary or exciting, however it 100 less that need replacing now.

The top of the hill still seems a fair way off, however it’s certainly seeming like a smaller gap to fill now!

In other good news, we’ve been working with the local council and we’ve managed to lock in 2 level crossing renewals in the immediate future.

Woodlocks Lane will be next Thursday and Friday, details will be posted  next week.

Sawmill Road will be on Thursday 12th and Friday 13th September. This will be a big milestone, marking the end of the re-railing project!

Tomorrow’s crew will be continuing on with sleepers, we’ve still got 20 to install to complete the current job, all going well we might be able to attempt a further 40 sleepers before we begin the task of tidying up the old timber etc… meeting out on site (old tip xing) from 8am.

Tomorrow’s workday will be a little different, with the focus being on moving rails and sleepers around for two imminent level crossing rebuilds.

The gang truck will be leaving Maldon at 8am, otherwise we’ll be meeting at Muckleford from 8.30am.

Friday’s workday was quite successful, with many small but essential jobs ticked off in the resleepering preparations. The plan this week is further preparations / works trains tomorrow, resleepering Thursday and Friday.

After many weeks away from this task, we’re back into it. We certainly won’t be back with quite the same intensity we were, however we’ve taken a gentle start into it, preparing a very good number of fastclip type sleepers ready for installation next week.

It’s a little hard to actually show what we did today, however in essence we’ve check many hundred sleepers for completeness and attended to a few hundred that needed bits adding, taking those parts from other sleepers which aren’t usable or had enough other bits missing. It was a fairly thankless job but we got very proficient at it as we went on.

Tomorrow’s work is looking wet, the forecast is indicating rain all day, we’ll still be out there doing more preparation with the diggers, however if you do choose to join us, be prepared for wet weather – we’ll be out on site (old tip crossing near Bendigo Road) from about 8.30am.

We had our last big tidy up of Castlemaine Yard today, following on from all the recent works there.

It’s certainly not manicured, however it’s a vast improvement over when we started, both from a track condition point of view and an aesthetic one.

The afternoon was spent returning our full suite of vehicles and equipment from Castlemaine back home to Maldon.

Thursday will see us back into the re-sleepering groove, we’ll need a few days of preparation things before we’re headlong into it next week. Thursday crew will meet at Maldon at 8am, heading out to the old tip crossing just past Bendigo Rd shortly after.