Firstly, I would like to congratulate everyone on an outstanding year of achievements and I wish to thank everyone for their dedication and encouragement during the year.

We held 15 working bees during the last 12 months ranging from huge to small. Some of the larger work efforts saw track lifted and removed on the southern end of the line close to town, two large earthworks north and south of the dump road, reinstatement of worn embankments and work on drainage and culverts. Considerable track cleaning has occurred along with a large section of the track being sprayed for weeds.

Work teams have also been created with groups being made responsible for fish plate refurbishment and another team working on cattle stops and culverts. The cattle stop on the southern side of the tip road is almost complete and the other cattle stop on the northern side is progressing well. Timber for these projects has been donated by Marjorie and Richard Webb from their property at Tarana and this was transported to town and milled on our President Shane's mill. Four to six OTHR members consistently gave their time to this special project.

But the biggest day of the year for our members was Saturday, 24 th February 2007 when the first of the sleepers hit the ground at Hazelgrove Station with the help of Greg Noble and his invaluable team of workers from RailCorp. They demonstrated to thirty OTHR volunteers how to remove the old, deteriorated sleepers and replace them with the newly acquired second-hand sleepers. We must have “killed” some volunteers on that first day because ten of them did not reappear on the next day! We laid 175 sleepers over a distance of 105 metres which was a great effort for a group of learners.

The month of February saw the largest expenditure yet of volunteer hours for a month with just over $50,000 (in equivalent work hours) being recorded. The value of the volunteers' hours for the whole year now amounts to the equivalent of $181,000. Well done everyone.

Week long working bees

The Board has decided that week long working bees will help to speed up the sleeper laying project from Hazelgrove to Oberon. It will enable some of our out-of-town members to come and join our regular volunteers and making it a worthwhile visit to Oberon. The dates are as follows:

• 12 th to 20 th May inclusive
• 4 th to 12 th August inclusive
• 3 rd to 11 th November inclusive
• 2 nd to 10 th February inclusive

All of these working bees include the two weekends of those weeks and more details will be given about them in due course.

Finally, I would like to finish by saying thanks to the outgoing Board for their achievements during the year, their support and advice. Welcome to the new Board members, I wish them all the best for the forthcoming year.

Peter Culley - Track Manager