We had an extremely successful day in Maldon Yard today.

We replaced 11 failed sleepers in 1 road.

A further 12 more in 3 road.

And we did a mountain of jacking and packing of the various little dips around the Yard.

The tipper even got a bit of action in cleaning up the old sleepers.

Thanks to Maldon’s very shallow ballast depth and underlying soft clay, its very susceptible to settlement, this is not an irregular task, however we really seemed to get it looking better this time, likely a benefit of the improvements to the drainage we did last year.

It all looks quite smart now, with everything tidied up.

The small section of 3 road we’ve worked on looks a million dollars, all levelled and tidily boxed up. When we get a spare month, we’ll attack the rest of the road. However, this is the high traffic end. The rest sees very little use and has a high number of steel sleepers.

And just to embarrass Mal, here’s a shot of him enjoying the first slice of cake, before promptly ensuring everyone else got a piece. We’re very lucky on track, we’ve got several people who bring along a fantastic treat for morning and afternoon tea, a big thankyou to the cooks at home for thinking of us!

Although not part of today’s work, these are the anchors we installed on Tuesday, Victrack kindly donated us some brand new 94lb anchors some time ago and we’ve finally been able to make good use of the.

Tomorrow’s crew will be starting at Maldon at 8am and then heading out the track a little, doing a bit more tamping work, lifting a few low spots between Maldon and Muckleford.

We had an extremely successful day in Maldon Yard today.

We replaced 11 failed sleepers in 1 road.

A further 12 more in 3 road.

And we did a mountain of jacking and packing of the various little dips around the Yard.

The tipper even got a bit of action in cleaning up the old sleepers.

Thanks to Maldon’s very shallow ballast depth and underlying soft clay, its very susceptible to settlement, this is not an irregular task, however we really seemed to get it looking better this time, likely a benefit of the improvements to the drainage we did last year.

It all looks quite smart now, with everything tidied up.

The small section of 3 road we’ve worked on looks a million dollars, all levelled and tidily boxed up. When we get a spare month, we’ll attack the rest of the road. However, this is the high traffic end. The rest sees very little use and has a high number of steel sleepers.

And just to embarrass Mal, here’s a shot of him enjoying the first slice of cake, before promptly ensuring everyone else got a piece. We’re very lucky on track, we’ve got several people who bring along a fantastic treat for morning and afternoon tea, a big thankyou to the cooks at home for thinking of us!

Although not part of today’s work, these are the anchors we installed on Tuesday, Victrack kindly donated us some brand new 94lb anchors some time ago and we’ve finally been able to make good use of the.

Tomorrow’s crew will be starting at Maldon at 8am and then heading out the track a little, doing a bit more tamping work, lifting a few low spots between Maldon and Muckleford.

Unfortunately, it would appear that for all of today’s work, only 1 picture was actually taken. It was an action-packed day with lots achieved.

It began by installing anchors on the new turnout to ensure it doesn’t move longitudinally when we shift it sideways.

We’ve replaced 21 timber sleepers in 2 Road and made a start replacing sleepers in 3 road. So far we’ve installed 7 steel sleepers, which we’ll interspace with timber, however that’ll be Thursday’s Job.

Thursday’s crew will work on completing 3 road, replacing 11 sleepers in 1 road and having a massive clean up of all the mess we’ve now so successfully made! Meeting at Maldon from 8am.

Another successful day today, with all the spikes and screws now driven.

Once that straight leg is in, it’s all just one big kit of bits.

We’re very happy with how it’s come up, as it’s now a third hand turnout, made from well used rail, so getting everything looking perfect can be quite a task, but it’s certainly looking very smart. The curve is slightly flat around the fishplates and a few of the welds. However, that’s neither here nor there in terms of it’s functionality.

Tuesday will see us finish off the finer details, spreader bars, heel bolts, etc… then we’ll switch over to doing a bit of resleepeeing in Maldon Yard, as it’s now due a good look at.

We probably won’t get this turnout in for a while yet, the main issue being it’s a few days worth of work and there’s little to no point in rushing it, so we’ll probably take a full week to do it, however, it’ll mean trains won’t be able to run around at all, so we’ll need to wait until we can schedule a train to run with a loco at each end.

Tuesday crew will be meeting at Maldon from 8am.