To say that resleepeeing today was a success might be a little of an overstatement, as upon installing the 15th sleeper of the day… the ram that connects the two halves of the grabs fell off.

In reality, it ended up being very fixable, as it had just cracked around the weld and a simple trip to Castlemaine to pull the ram out of the grabs and re-weld the nuckle to the ram was only a few hours inconvenience.

It’s quite remarkable that the weld hadn’t let go sooner, as it had some evidence of an aged crack once on the workbench, not that you would ever have detected it when still on the grabs.

Anyhow, after deciding to double the amount of weld, compared to the factory amount (which was actually probably quite sufficient, likely just a minor welding defect when constructed) and a good solid test, it’s now as good as new! The one thing that really impressed us was the ease with which we were able to pull the grabs apart and reassemble, very happy with that feature.

Given what we’ve put these grabs through, we could hardly complain, they’ve done some amazingly hard tasks.

Once the excitement and heroic effort of the workshop staff got us out of trouble – thanks Bazz and Harry, we returned to site to get another 31 sleepers installed, taking us up to 45 for the day, had we not lost 3.5hrs to this, we’d probably have completed from Boundary Trk to Sawmill Rd.

We’ll have a red hot crack at doing that tomorrow however. We will be meeting at Boundary Trk from 8.30am, however, we’re really closer to Sawmill Rd now, so if you arrive much after 8.45am, it’s probably best to head straight to Sawmill Rd and walk up.

We actually had an extremely successful day today, for the first time, we used the big digger for inserting and tamping sleepers.

The little digger is currently out of action, with a fairly major hydraulic issue (it’s actually a simple issue, but a very major fix – involving removing most of the ancillaries (like fuel and hydraulic tanks etc…) to access a simple failed relief valve. We’ve made the decision that given sending it out to contract will likely be extremely expensive, we’ll put that digger on the back burner until the steam engine is back in action, when we can make use of the workshops at Castlemaine for a few weeks to pull it apart. Until then, the big digger will substitute.

It’s certainly nowhere near as suited to the task as the little digger is, however it did prove to be quite capable, albeit a little slower. Unfortunately we did develop a small leak in the grabs after the 55th concrete sleeper. However, while that was being fixed, we did manage to get all of those tamped up.

We’re probably about 1/3rd completed between Boundary Track and Sawmill Rd now and we’ll continue with this on Thursday.

We had such an impressive gang size today, so we sent half of the gang off sorting, cleaning and stacking sleeper plates at Muckleford.

We know that everyone was just itching to do this task, however luckily a few were willing to hang back and clip up the sleepers.

Thursday’s gang will meet at Maldon at 7.45am or out at Boundary Trk from 8.15am

Friday proved to be an extremely successful day, with the whole UP leg drilled and spiked, between Sawmill Rd and Boundary Track, quite a phenomenal effort for our gang of 4.

Today saw us distributing more of the concrete sleepers that are currently arriving at a rate of one truck load a week, we’ve focused on getting them out around Bendigo Road crossing, where it’s hard to unload a train due to the track circuiting.

So far 440 have arrived and been dropped out trackside, with hopefully another 3600 still to come!

Tomorrow’s workday will be installing concrete sleepers between Boundary Trk and Sawmill Rd, meeting Maldon 8am or Boundary Track from 8.30am.

Unfortunately, you’ll just have to come out to inspect today’s progress for yourself tomorrow, as not once today did we remember to get a photo!!

We have, however, completed the drilling and spike driving along the Down leg between Sawmill Rd and Boundary Trk. We’ve also dropped out dog spikes and inserted all the sleepers in the UP leg, ready for drilling and spiking tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s crew will meet out at Boundary Trk Crossing from around 8.15am – we’ve also got some insider knowledge from the grader driver, Sawmill Rd will be graded tomorrow.

As such enter via Boundary Track off the Muckleford- Castlemaine Road, it’s immediately next to where Sawmill Rd starts – a google map pin for those who are unsure, and this road is currently quite good, suitable for low cars etc…. https://maps.app.goo.gl/v2zrLp17yDs2VR6V7