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.

In anticipation of renewing Sawmill Road crossing in a fortnight, we’ve made a start on the other work that needs to occur there.

Mainly removing as much of the remaining 60lb rail as possible, ahead of time to reduce the workload next week.

We’ve replaced 37m of 60lb rail with 94lb, as the down side and through the crossing will be 94lb, transitioning back to 80lb just past the crossing, using some welded junction rails, the installation of those rails will occur on Thursday / Friday this week, with temporary small transition back to 60lb for the current crossing, to get us through until rebuild day.

It looks almost no different. However, the rails are a bit taller and straighter.

The UP side hasn’t received any attention yet, which will be our focus later this week. We’ll then, if time permits, replace as many failed sleepers as possible ahead of time, to reduce the work on rebuild day.

In exciting news, the yellow truck has a windscreen again, big shout out to Windscreen City in Bendigo for their speedy service with this one.

Thursday’s crew meeting Maldon 8am or Sawmill Rd from 8.45am

It was a glorious morning and the signs were that the roadway saw a fair amount of traffic last night, helping to make it compact.

This particular gravel doesn’t seem to want to firm up like it usually does, but hopefully it’ll be right in a few days.

We spent today completing the approaches and giving the area a thorough tidy up.

And we’re very happy with how it’s come up! The roadway surface, being gravel, continues to need maintenance, but the track should see all of us out!

In the late 1980s/early 1990s, an advert was made at this exact location. We claim no rights to it, however it does form part of the railway’s history.  https://youtu.be/UDiQdsiKvCw?si=SKDA9yorHOEfBhCF

It’s a little hard to tell from the ad. However, we can assure you that it was filmed here. A few of the people involved on filming night were out helping us rebuild this crossing today!

Enough time was even had to head back out in the bush and prepare some more concrete sleepers, a good few hundred are now ready for insertion when the time comes, which won’t be next week but will likely be from mid to late September onwards.

We didn’t have our resident Thursday photograph on hand to catch all the excitement today, however we did remember to take a few. The first shot was about morning tea, by which time the old was out and most of the new was in!

In what seemed like no time, we had rails in, cut to length, bolted in and clipped up!

Post lunch was the ever exciting job of lifting to level, ballasting and tamping.

We’ve given the ballast a very thorough tamp, lots of vibration from the tamper, and hopefully, it’ll stay where it’s meant to. The old ground below was brilliantly compact and hard and evidently very well draining.

It wasn’t long before we were adding gravel and rolling it in, we though the truck would be a good weight, however the digger appears to have a much heavier footprint. It’ll settle a little so we’ve got a bit extra on hand to top it up when it does.

We spent the afternoon focusing on the crossing itself, meaning we still have the approaches to get to the correct height and tamp, which should be relatively straight forward. We’ve got one little kink to pull out too, we had it perfect, but it moved during lifting, thankfully it’s in a easy location.

A massive thankyou to Mount Alexander Shire Council for their assistance with the road closure and gravel, we couldn’t do it without them.

In very unfortunate news, we had some very serious damage done to the yellow truck upon return to Maldon.

We returned to find an individual helping himself to some of our stores of items (using tools he’d bought himself to unbolt items that he believes are rightfully his), and he didn’t take too kindly to being told to return the items and retaliated by damaging our truck.

2 broken mirrors, a smashed windscreen and a broken indicator. Undertaken with a shifter, many threats were also made to our staff, upon our request for him to return the item he stole.

The police are involved, however the individual did leave the site against the direction of police, with the items he intended to take.

He is a most unwelcome visitor to the railway, with previous negative interactions.

If anyone sees this vehicle, registration 1SG 9HW at any location around our railway or others, please contact the police and indicate he has a history of stealing railway items. His first name is believed to be Jack, and he is probably known to a few railway groups.

Unfortunately, his behaviour today was highly inappropriate, and he is certainly not doing the railway preservation movement any favours. The vehicle and individual are pictured below. We also have some great video footage of him smashing the window and throwing punches! But we’ll leave that with the police until charges are laid.

It has soured what should have been a very pleasant and successful day.

Hopefully, tomorrow is less eventful! We’ve still got a bit to do, and we’ll be meeting down at Woodlocks Lane from around 8/8.15am.