Today’s victim was this turnout in Maldon Yard. It has been largely left to its own devices for 30 years and unfortunately it was really starting to suffer from it.

We haven’t got sufficient time, resources or spare to replace everything, however the area of concern was the section between the blades and V crossing, which is relatively straight forward to rebuild.

However everything we uncovered was certainly beyond repair, this was expected, so we didn’t waste time trying to salvage anything, rather it was just total destruction!

Of all of the rails we removed, each one broke during the process, not surprising given the rust that occurred. However we suspect they might not have been in the best of health to begin with, so they’ve served us very well for 30 years.

A bit of a joint digger effort and the destruction was complete!

We then setup the laser and dug it all to depth, there’s a really nice hard layer of gravel down there, so we were careful not to disturb that.

We did end up deciding to do more than we first planned, near the blades, things looked okay before we disturbed it but they certainly weren’t afterwards.

Before long we’d sourced from our stockpiles sufficient 2nd hand timber to put back in (for these 20 odd timbers we’ve put in, we only recovered 5 – not of good enough quality to reuse either).

This turnout doesn’t conform to any standard plan, so the timbering and rail location is just what works best, however it seemed to be catered for well by our stockpiles of spare parts.

By the afternoon we’d bolted up most of the rail, some needs cutting tomorrow and we’ll adjust the joints so that we can reduce the number that are to be buried (compared to before anyhow).

Hopefully, we’ll also get all of this fastened up tomorrow so we can get it tidied up before the predicted rain on Wednesday/Thursday. Meeting Maldon from 8am.

At what is now the end of our Major effort in re-sleepering between Maldon and Muckleford in 2024, we can proudly show off our hard work in this extremely exciting and informative table of stats! For convenience these stats start at Maldon and work towards Pipeline Crossing.

In the coming weeks, we’ll try to get a Video from Maldon to Pipeline Crossing up, to show off our good work!

Location	Date	No. of Sleepers Installed
Curve 22 (Just of Maldon Yard)	May 2024	292
Tangent 21-22	June 2024	401
Tangent 20-21	May / June 2024	544
Curve 20	March 2024	667
Curve 19	March 2024	441
Curve 18	March / April 2024	481
Curve 17	April 2024	680
Failed Timber Sleepers Near Winters Flat Bridge – As part of Re-railing	April 2024	9
Total		3,515

It’s been a massive effort, taking many hours, working in some slightly unfriendly weather. It has required some 14,000 biscuits and clips, all of which have been manually installed, which in itself has been an enormous effort!

A quick glance a our sleeper installation bar chart shows just how many additional sleepers we’ve installed this year compared to previous years – the year isn’t over yet either and we’re very hopeful of getting at least a further 1200 sleepers in before the end of 2024.

In the section Curve 20 to Pipeline Crossing, we were able to easily grade and assess the timber sleeper condition, however in the section we’ve just completed, this has been significantly harder, due to a mix of steel sleepers, quite a number of low profile concrete sleepers (which have been removed for re-use elsewhere) and a very high portion of timber sleepers that have come out in kit form. As such these figures aren’t available readily, however it is no exaggeration to state that this section had a notably worse sleeper condition – with only around 10 top grade sleepers recovered from all of the recent works – however the section was largely straight and as such was holding together much better than the curved areas.

The most common question is always: There can’t be many timber sleepers left out there now can there?

Unfortunately the answer is it’s still a very large number! It’s slightly easier to break it down into two sections, Maldon to Muckleford and Muckleford to Castlemaine – as the two sections are being re-sleepered in a notably different fashion.

Maldon to Muckleford:

Being re-sleepered using Full Depth Concrete Sleepers – which need to be installed in a 100% pattern (no mixing with timber)

Total Distance: 7.6kms	Total Number of Sleepers: 9975
Distance now 100% concrete: 3.07kms	Number of Concrete Sleepers Installed: 4030
Distance still timber: 4.53kms	Number of Timber Sleepers Remaining: 5950

So we’re currently around 40% of the way through replacing timber sleepers in the Maldon – Muckleford Section.

Our plan is to complete the 800m of timber sleepers that still remains between the two main sections we’ve worked on during 2024 – this will take us up to about 51% completed. Our main focus for 2025 will then be finishing off the 49% of the track that will still be timber sleepered – hopefully meaning that by the end of 2025, we’ll be 100% concrete between Maldon and Muckleford – it’s at this point that we’ll be heavily chasing Ballast and Tamping of the track to bring it up to a high standard and and low maintenance section of track.

Muckleford to Castlemaine:

This section has been treated with low profile concrete sleepers – interspersed with timber sleepers at a minimum 1 in 3 pattern – however the remaining timber sleepers are now 20 years old and starting to show their age. There are still a few small sections that require the 1 in 3 treatment.

Total Distance: 9.5kms	Total Number of Sleepers: 12470
Distance that has min. 1 in 3 concrete: 8.29kms	Number of Concrete Sleepers Installed: 4500 (approx.)
Distance that still needs min. 1 in 3 concrete: 1.21kms	Number of Concrete Sleepers needed for this: 530
Total Distance that still requires infill of failed timber sleepers: 9.5kms	Total Number of Sleepers still to replace: 7970 (approx.)

So although we’ve been able to distribute the concrete sleepers in a much more useful fashion in the Castlemaine Section, we’ve still got a lot of replacements to go! As such the job is still a long way off being complete – the difference here being that the time factor to get this work complete is far less critical than in the Maldon section, as the 1 in 3 concrete sleepers already installed will extended the remaining life of the timber sleepers significantly (by 3-5 years)

Our plan is to spend 2025 focusing heavily on the Maldon section, as per above, however we’ll assume we may need to install 500 sleepers in this section to keep it in a the current condition that it is – in the sections that are yet to receive the 1 in 3 treatment.

Once the Maldon – Muckleford section is completed, we’ll be aiming at replacing the intermediate timber sleepers at a rate of around 3000 per year, until we can replace all timber sleepers – which we plan to have behind us by the end of 2027.

Unfortunately we’re still a long was off having sufficient funds available to purchase all the fastenings we require to use all of the Concrete Sleepers that we’ve been able to access through RTHV (Railway and Tramway Heritage Victoria) & VicTrack making these sleepers available to the Tourist and Heritage Sector within Victoria – without the hard work of this process, we’d be finding ourselves in a very dire situation given the rising prices of timber sleepers.

As always, we’re very proud of our efforts so far, but we’re still very aware of what lies in our future… it’s still a lot of work and money.

• We still need to secure around 3000 more concrete sleepers to fulfil our needs in the next few years – which still requires a significant transport cost – the VGR is currently hoping to make use of a ‘Loan’ arrangement to assist with this process, until such time as we can repay the loan – however if anyone is potentially able to assist in putting up some money as a loan – this will reduce the amount we need to try to find finance for and greatly help in reducing the shock loading to the VGR’s finances – please contact civil@vgr.com.au if you may be able to assist – as we can put you in direct contact with the correct people to discuss this.

• Rough estimates using current pricing places us at still needing to spend around $270,000 on hardware, to be able to use the 12,000ish concrete sleepers that still need to be installed (taking away what material we currently have in stock).

• Our little excavator is really showing its age after all this recent work – it has been just holding together, but when you realise we’re still quite a bit less than half way through the overall project – it is certainly not going to see us out for this whole project – it’s just untenable to suggest it would – given it’s age and enormous amount of work already completed. It’s replacement cost is going to come in at around $350,000 – fully fitted with hi-rail and ready for use – we’re getting to the point where if we don’t do something soon, we’ll be spending at least $100,000 to keep ours in going condition, assuming we don’t suffer a more major failure, and then it’ll just be a time game before the next bit wears out…..operating any plant, especially rail plant, is a very expensive game unfortunately! – we’ve looked into hiring or buying 2nd hand etc… but we’re going to come very close to spending the same money in less time than it’ll take to complete the project!

It would be great to have access to sufficient money to tick off this major task and get back to spending money on improving other areas of the Victorian Goldfields Railway, we’ll find a way, but if anyone has any good contact or connection with a large company that would like to sponsor the VGR Civil Branch – we’d be most receptive to offers!

In unrelated matters – we’ve still got 2 weeks of 5 day occupations left and we’ll be using that time to fix some rather bad sections of Maldon Yard – the areas that are often just too hard to easily maintain. Meeting at Maldon, every day, from 8am.

We had a big day of finishing off and tidying up today.

Lots of jacking and tamping, after the addition of a little bit of rock in a few places.

We can comfortably say that within a few mm, this section of track is now level, something it hasn’t been for an extremely long time, as long as any of us can remember.

The hero’s of this work are the hydraulic jacks, we wouldn’t even consider this without them.

It’s a little hard to see in the pics, but hopefully the relative uniformity between the rails compared with photos of earlier in the week is noticeable.

We’re certainly very happy with the results. Given what we’ve got to work with for ballast and lifting equipment, we’re never going to get a mainline quality result at this stage of the game, but we’re miles ahead of where it was when it was still timber sleepers.

Something to be quite proud of.

We had a very pleasant surprise today, with beef and gravy rolls put on by the McCorkelle’s, it was extremely well recipient and a welcome addition in today’s cold. We’ll certainly see if we can twist their arms to repeat this for the other gangs sometime soon, to help commemorate and celebrate the enormous resleepering effort this year – we’ve hit 3515 sleeper now! (All since March).

The day wasn’t over there however, in preparation for the last major works before handing back the week-long occupations, we needed to gather a few lengths of 60lb rail, from Pipeline Crossing, which was successful achieved.

We’ll be beginning some fairly major Turnout Rejuvenation work in Maldon next week, which will likely require better rail than what’s currently buried. We’ll be knocking out access to the water column, turntable and headshunt for a bit so it’s very opportune to do it while there’s no weekday trains.

We’ll certainly be working Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, however Wednesday may become a machinery maintenance day, check back for details next week, all starting 8am Maldon Yard.

We had a mighty impressive day today, with 157 concrete sleepers installed, completing the straight section down to Woodlocks Lane Crossing.

Job one, however, was to load up the fire in readiness for some warmth at morning tea.

Before long, we were into it, starting at the top and working downhill.

The final clip was pulled just before lunch time, not a bad effort at all.

Following lunch, a big general tidying was had, including loading up all the drums, collecting old timber etc…

Before beginning works on making the ramp down to the crossing, of which a small qty of ballast was required, especially given that this will be here for some months, we have used ballast rather than just scraping up gravel.

A quick run up and back yo bring back what small amount of gravel ballast remained was undertaken prior to beginning the exciting job of jacking and packing the track.

We’ve still got a fair way to go with this tomorrow. This was by far the worst section we’ve come across to date. In all fairness, it was also the roughest before we started work, so that’s not a great surprise. We’ve removed the biggest dips from one leg and after adding some ballast tomorrow we’ll remove the crossfall from the rest, it won’t be perfect but it’ll be much better than it was before.

We’re quite proud of our efforts here, and hopefully, if we get time tomorrow, we’ll have a few stat’s to show off just how much extra re-sleepering we achieve in this period than we’d first thought possible.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet out on site from around 7.45am. (Woodlocks Ln)