We managed a very impressive 90 odd sleepers just past Bendigo Road Crossing.

That got us to a 1 in 2 pattern all clipped up.

This, by coincidence, marks the half way spot between the crossing and section of concrete we inserted last year, just down the way.

This week should comfortably see all the additional sleepers in and clipped up, hopefully all the timber bundled and back up at Maldon and any last tamping needed to make this strip quite usable.

The rain is looking to be arriving later in the day tomorrow, so we’ll still be working as usual, 8am at Maldon or just after on site, hopefully the bulk of it will be out of the way by lunch time.

Another very successful day today, the big digger did some substitution early on, but we had the little one back in action in no time. A replacement hose was all we needed.

It seemed to go like clockwork, installing the remainder of the sleepers.

Once it’d had a good line and a tidy up lift and tamp, it is now quite acceptable, certainly no worse than it was previously anyhow. It still could do with further tweaking, however we can attend to that once we’ve handed the week long occupations back as it’ll make little to no difference in the short term, other than appearance.

Tomorrow’s crew will begin on the other side of Bendigo Road Crossing, meeting on site from 8am. Thursday’s weather is looking wet, so we might not be aiming too high tomorrow incase we get rained out.

Quite a successful day today, until the little digger blew a hose, but thankfully we’d well and truly broken the back of the job by then.

We had a very light difference to contend with today, a section of timber sleepers with pandrol adaptors. These a little more labour intensive to unclip than standard spikes.

It was all pretty regulation stuff otherwise however.

We did change the way we handled the adapter type sleepers, leaving 1 in 4 fastened up, unlike the usual 3 in 4 spiked up, as with the clips they can’t just be knocked off.

We almost completed the insertions 1 in 2 and clipped up. The digger died with only about 5 to go. We should knock that over easily tomorrow once we’ve got the new hose.

It’s looking a bit rough and ready currently, it’ll improve greatly once we’ve done a lining pass tomorrow, inserted the intermediates and then tamped up the approaches.

Tomorrow’s crew meeting Maldon 8am or on site shortly after.

Yesterday’s Pics –

It started out as a very atmospheric day, a real late autumn, early winter feel in the air.

It didn’t take long to complete the 1 in 2’s, which got us comfortably into the straight.

This was followed by a very intense fill in run, getting the remainder in and clipped up.

A bit of ballast/gravel scrapping left the edges looking quite nice and tidy, this was mainly to permit a gentle squeeze in a few locations to fix any major dips.

The main work was completing the ramps at either end. Which both came up very nicely.

A few minor tweaks around the curve improved things nicely. It at least as good and in all honesty slightly better than it was previously.

We certainly managed to get a slightly better line around most of the curve, which improves the appearance to no end.

Today’s effort involved strapping up all the old timber sleepers as well marking out the next sections to be replaced.

The next little bit will be this section, on the immediate down side of Bendigo Road. This may seem a little illogical, however we’ll finish installing this type of sleeper before we move onto the fastclip type. We expect next week we’ll have both sides of the crossing completed and hopefully we’re very close to bridging the gap down to the run we installed near the Old Tip Xing.

It’s nice to be back resleepeeing and the more we get done between now and the end of June, the better off we’ll be, as once weekday trains resume in this section, things will slow down a fair bit.

Monday’s gang will meet at Maldon at 8am or out on site from 8.05am.