Quite a change of pace today, with some of the very last of the 60lb being swapped over for 80lb.

We managed to resurrect the ballast brush, to help flick rocks clear and that made the job much easier, given the thick layer of ballast here, it was going to be a lot of digging otherwise.

This section is part of the track circuiting for Midland Hwy Crossing, as such the crossing has by necessity been made inactive to allow these works, hence why its desirable to do such works in an extended no trains period, here we’re removing the diode at the far end of the  circuit to ensure no damage could come to it.

We flicked up the replacement rails and had a bit of a think about the best locations for joints (as no two of these rails were the same length, so a few needed cutting, best to minimise that however).

It took no time at all and the down rail was in.

And with the new down leg insulated joint for the level crossing, these haven’t moved at all, but given the rail size increase, new insulated joints were required. These are hard-butted with a plastic endpost between the rails to ensure electrical isolation, and the aim being that these are frozen (don’t expand / contract) as any gap here tends to result in the plastic endpost breaking, they’re really easy to install when re-railing like this, much quicker and simpler than in pre-existing track.

Once we’d dropped in the new rail on the Down leg prior, without actually extending onto the bridge, we set about the UP leg.

This one required a couple of cuts to make it all happy, so took a little longer.

Anyhow before long it too was in place in 80lb.

During the day we had Rolf working with his theodolite to give us a straight line to work to over the bridge, as the rails that are there currently are far from straight, we certainly don’t want to include those errors in the rerail.

Everything from today has been bolted up, but nothing has yet been clipped up, meaning we’ll be able to hit the ground running in the morning.

Tomorrow’s crew will start at Maldon to collect the yellow truck then meeting on site, entry is best from Midland Hwy Crossing from around 8.30am.

We’ve had a very good week of fixing things, with the exception of the Takeuchi, everything is back in action. The Takeuchi hitch is off at a place in Bendigo being repaired, it’ll be at least another week away.

We’ve had a chance to finally crunch some numbers on the recent works, with some stat’s below.

In a brief overview, during the past 7 week, we’ve installed 2269 concrete sleepers in place of around 2350 timber sleepers (the old spacings were very inconsistent), all over a distance of 1.73kms (starting at Curve 20 and finishing at Pipeline Crossing). During that 7 weeks, due to Public Holidays and the like, we only actually used 31 of the 35 days available – not a bad effort at all.

It is interesting to note, the timber sleepers removed give an excellent indication of the impending situation this section of the railway was facing – from the recent work, we only recovered:

• 13% of them as A grade sleepers – which are good enough to re-use in our Station Yards
• 37% of them as B Grade sleepers – which are still solid enough timber, however they’re all second/third hand and so heavily spike killed (multiple holes), any re-use of these would only see a couple of years life, if any, as most of these were already showing signs of cracking / rotting in the spike areas
• 20% of them as C Grade sleepers (20%) – they’re still in one piece but not good enough to even consider re-use (certainly weren’t doing any good in the track)
• 30% of them came out as broken sleepers

At any point in time, we would aim to only have a 25% failed timber rate in the track (1 in 4 nearing/needing replacement), however this section (at 50%) was certainly not in the best of the shape, one of the main reasons it has been the first to receive this treatment.

However even more impressive, we hope, is that we’ve finally worked out how to use modern technology sufficiently to not only take a video, but get it up here too!

This starts at Pipeline Crossing and runs through to the Maldon end of these works, hopefully helping to make this a little more clear to those who don’t know the railway in quite so much detail as we do – we hope the quality is okay enough to show the hard work – we’ll try to work out how to improve all these things in due course – at this stage we’re more than busy just getting the work done.

It should be remembered that all the concrete sleepers you’ll see in this video were installed in only 7 weeks!

We’re extremely proud of this little section, and all being well, by the middle of the year, we’ll be extremely close to having all the way from Maldon to Pipeline Crossing completed like this.

It’s not quite finished yet, we’re yet to bring back the shoulders and clean out the drains, however that’ll be pretty high on the list once the Takeuchi is back in action.

Next week, will be a complete change of pace, we’ll be down by Winters Flat Bridge, re-railing!. We’ll begin by re-railing the section from the end of the Midland Highway Crossing Curve to the Bridge, so we can get back into the swing of it before tackling the Bridge.

Monday’s gang will meet at Maldon at 8am or out on site by Midland Hwy Crossing from 8.45am.

Sorry about the lack of updates since last Thursday, unfortunately by the end of Friday, the little digger and gang truck were out of action and it’s been all systems go just to get them back in action, let alone undertaking a few other items of basic maintenance.

The truck is now back with us, the digger is at least a week away, as it requires the manufacture of a new quick hitch cylinder rod.

We’re very fortunate they broken when they did!

As such (and we’re still chasing our tails just keeping up with basic maintenance currently), there won’t be any workdays this week, we’re going to use the chance to get on top of various things before they’re bigger issues.

The plan, however, is that Monday 29th April through to Friday 3rd May, will be workdays, with a heavy focus on re-railing some of the small amount of remaining 60lb near Winters Flat Bridge.

We finally made it!!!

We set about the project of resleepering the curves between Pipeline Crossing and the UP end of the long straight that runs through Bendigo Road back at the start of March and less than 7 weeks later here we are.

There will be lots of exciting statistics in regards to total sleepers, length re-sleepered etc… once we’ve had the time to finish crunching the numbers.

Yesterday’s machinery day placed us in a good position to hit the ground running today.

One of the challenges with 2nd hand stuff, is the stuff left behind from its past life. It has been quite a common issue to have a broken off clip stuck in a sleeper, however a gentle tap is often all it takes to free the offending item.

The team proudly installing the final clips.

Quite a time was spent getting the ramp down to the crossing correct.

The crossing could still come up another few inches, however until we’ve resleepered the otherside we’ll leave it like this, which is very acceptable and quite a lot better than it was previously.

Lunch was had in such a location as to admire the accomplishment. And what an accomplishment it really is!

Some dip removal and gravel smoothing finished off that part of the job excellently.

The job is certainly not finished, despite still requiring significant quantities of ballast and a full production tamp and line, in the immediate future we still need to scrape back in what little shoulder there is, clean out the drains, move the last of the timber off site and collect any unused concretes.

However, it is now far closer to the end than the beginning! Only around 6kms to go between Maldon and Muckleford that needs the same treatment…

All that have been involved should feel extremely proud of their efforts!

While today was a real milestone, it’s not quite pack up and go home yet, we’ve still got a large pile of sleepers to sort, bundle and transport to Maldon tomorrow. 

Tomorrow’s crew will meet at Maldon at 8am as we’ll be in need of a few drivers to bring the vehicles out.