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.

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.