Today we set about rerailing 3 road at Castlemaine, the original 80lb rails are well past their useful service life, and given the rather heavy use we expect from this track, it was time to replace them. We were given some longish lengths of 94lb from VLine some years ago when they were rerailing their track nearby, so we’ve used this at the Melbourne end of the platform to replace the very worn 80lb.

It was all pretty normal process stuff for us these days, however we made use of the recent resleepering with screws to allow the sleeper plates to be kept in position and gauge automatically held for us without needing to do any additional work. We were also able to drive a dogspike down the screw hole without having to redrill or crossbore – a big effort saver.

The order of works may seem a little illogic. However, it was all about being able to get diggers over the works to avoid extra manual handling. The platform leg was completed first, but once that was in and spiked up, we began on the other leg.

It’s quite surprising how excellent a lot of the old timber sleepers still are – they’re mainly gray-box – a very durable local timber thats now hard to come by. However only one was spike killed sufficient that is didn’t take a crossbore or spike up and that’s pretty good given the average age of 20+ years, we certainly don’t get that life from redgum!

The exciting news of the day was the workshops/civil BBQ lunch, put on by Max and the railway, which was a very welcome thing! Thankyou! It was nice to catch up with everyone, a thing that is a little harder to do with the workforce now spread over the railway. Hopefully, we can manage a bit more of this stuff in the future.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Castlemaine from 8 am, when we’ll complete the last 33.7m of rerailing (that’s the last length of 94lb we have available). It may be quite some time before we get back to complete the rest of 3 road, however this will remove the very worst of the old rail.

We’ve had a very successful day today, replacing 4 failed timbers in the double compound, which has also corrected the last of our gauge faults at Castlemaine (we were actually well within tolerance, however they’re a sign of things letting go, so best to act before they grow).

Once the new timbers were in and fastened up, we set about lifting a quite large dip through the compound and catch points, the result of which is mighty impressive visually, we would think it could make so much difference but it just has a much more cared for and in use look to it now.

Thursday’s crew will be beginning the rerailing of the platform road, starting at the Maldon end. We’ll do this in a couple of bits, first one being using up the 94lb rail sitting there already, followed later by 80lb for the remainder of the platform length (all based on what we have available).

Meeting at the depot at 8am then out by the Platform shortly after.

Tomorrow’s workday will again be at Castlemaine, this time replacing point timbers. Meeting at the depot around 8am then out in the yard by 8.15am ish.

Friday’s workday was a success, with a good number of failed sleepers replaced in 3, 4 & 5 sidings, actually removing all the failed sleepers there, there will be a few more due every year, however we’re much better keeping a stagger going rather than replacing large quantities in one go, lessens the risk of dramatic failure greatly.

A few of Friday’s were in very awkward locations, none the less we managed without causing any damage to the rodding or wires.

We spent a good amount of time Friday tidying up the ballast and it has certainly improved the appearance of the yard dramatically!

Hopefully, tomorrow’s work will be interesting, it’s always fiddly in a turnout, but we like a challenge.

Another glorious winters day, after a very cold start!

We’ve now completed all the replacements we’re going to in 3 and 4 roads, just a bit of tidy up needed tomorrow.

We’ve replaced a few sleepers in 5 siding and prepared tomorrow’s sections by pulling spikes in 3 siding and the turntable road.

Given the cold start that tomorrow will undoubtedly be, we’ll make the start time 8.30am at Castlemaine, as it takes until about then for the machines to warm up!