As promised, today saw the remainder of the trees removed from the embankment between Rowe Street and the Bridge.

The difference is phenomenal! Well worth dropping past to check it out, even better if seen from the train. Massive thanks to Vline and their contractors for making this happen.

We even tidied up the spindly stuff with the mower to make it look just that bit better.

Today’s crew worked on clearing away the mess of dead Blackberries on the other side of Rowe Street, much improved. Hopefully we can work with the neighbours to get a bit more of this removed, however they weren’t home today, so we’ll try again next time.

Next week’s program is back into re-railing. Tuesday’s gang meeting Maldon 8am or out at Boundary Track from 8.30am.

Today saw a very good amount of re-railing preparation undertaken, with the section from Boundary Track to Rifle Range Bridge very much ready to have it’s rail changed in the coming weeks. However without a digger, no actual re-railing was able to take place.

Lots of spikes were pulled.

Any rails that could be drilled were, which should save a significant amount of time on re-railing day.

In a slightly rear appearance on the Blog, our signalling engineer Gary was spotted changing over a faulty flashing light head at Bendigo Road Level Crossing. Unfortunately the signalling department often don’t quite make the blog as we’re often not on hand with a camera to catch them in action.

The reason for no digger, was that they were both on hand by Rowe Street today, assisting V/Line in clearing vegetation from near the Johnstone Street Arch Road Bridge. There is still a little more to go tomorrow, but the weedy poplars that have infested that bank for many decades are now on their way out. This is to help improve the drainage at the bridge, which has proven to be working less than desirably and to improve crossing visibility. This sort of job is far bigger than we could normally handle in house, so having V/Line and their contractors available to do the works, making use of our excavators to haul the felled branches into a chipped is a win – win for everyone.

Tomorrow’s gang will meet at Rowe Street Level Crossing from 8.30am, where we’ll also undertake some minor vegetation works near the crossing.

Unfortunately the technical hitch which is preventing photos uploading is still occurring, however work on the track has not be interrupted by this issue.

We’ve had an eventful few days, with a minor derailment in Castlemaine Yard last week taking up some of our time, all dealt with now, with everything once again back where it should be and in working order.

This distracted us from our rerailing efforts a little, however while in Castlemaine Yard we’ve also undertaken to attend to a number of minor jobs we’d be putting off until we found time, mainly related to levelling and tamping track.

Much of our work over the past 5 years there has settled a little, which was very much expected, so minor tweaks were undertaken in various locations around the Yard to set it right, also greatly improving the appearance.

Thursday’s gang will be back to re-railing, albeit undertaking preparations, as the diggers are required elsewhere. Meeting at Maldon at 8am or out by Boundary Trk from 8.30am.

Tomorrow’s gang will be undertaking various tamping jobs around Castlemaine Yard. We’ll be meeting at Maldon at 8am or in Castlemaine Yard from 8.30am